


Two witches, a werewolf, and the wind.

by Werepirechick



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Curses, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Growing Up Together, M/M, Magic-Users, Magical Accidents, Memory Loss, Multi, Necromancy, Polyamory, Rituals, Secret Relationship, Sibling Incest, Slow Build, Soul Bond, Spirits, Temporary Amnesia, Twins, Werewolves, Witch Curses, Witches, the fandom that consumed my soul through high school has drawn me back once more, those come back tho, welcome to the shitshow suckers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-11-23 11:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11401983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: Rose Lalonde is born with half a soul.Her twin, Dave Strider, is as well.It affects nearly everything about their lives from the beginning to the end.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stripe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stripe/gifts).



 

 

Rose Lalonde is born with half a soul.

Her twin, Dave Strider, is as well.

Their birth is an accident. Their parents’ late night mistakes lead to their conception, and they very nearly don’t exist because of this. They could have been aborted, could have miscarried, or could have simply never been.

Their mother carries them to term, and brings them into the world. If only because she and their father felt desire for children, even though Rose and Dave had come from a night with too much alcohol and not enough forethought.

They’re split between their parents in name and in house, to be equal and fair to each parental figure. They see each other often throughout their childhoods, and it’s only during the days and nights that they’re together that they feel _right._

Rose grows up with half a soul, and Dave does as well. It affects nearly everything about their lives from the beginning to the end.

 

 

 

“I don’t think we belong here,” Rose says, paging through her latest read of the week.

Dave looks up from the carrion he found earlier that day. He raises one eyebrow. “That’s dramatic.”

“As is how I prefer things,” His sister replies just a hint smarmily. Dave scoffs, but Rose continues anyways. “But seriously. You and I both know we don’t.”

Dave shrugs, and pushes his too large prescription sunglasses up his nose. They keep slipping. It’s hard to maintain an air of indifference when your glasses keep falling down. “I guess, but why should we care?”

“Well, I think we’d get less headaches if we went somewhere else.” They both get migraines, chronic ones, from the sheer overwhelming presence of the population they live among. They hardly happen when Rose and Dave are with one another, but sometimes it feels like their skulls are cracking in half if they’re alone too long.

Rose turns the page of her book. It’s a huge and thick thing, and she’s enjoying the contents quite a bit. She’s just the tiniest bit grateful her mother doesn’t care about her eight year old daughter asking for Lovecraftian novels to read. The same goes for Dave and his father, and all the little dead things Dave brings home to keep in jars.

“Where would we even go?” Dave asks, drawing a circle around his dead crow. Its skull is crushed and the wings bent at sickening angles. There are maggots already starting to grow in the squashed belly. He picked it up earlier off the road without feeling even an ounce of disgust.

“Somewhere without people,” Rose says. “But also, hopefully somewhere with people like us. Just a few.”

“Do you really think there’re others like us?” Dave asks. None of their school friends are, and their parents are completely… well, not completely, but mostly normal. Abnormal, but not abnormal like them.

“There’s too many people in the world for there not to be,” Rose traces the image of a tentacled horror, and hears the slightest whisper in the back of her head. “We’ll find them eventually.”

Dave shrugs again, and completes the circles around his crow. “Sure, if you really wanna. Hey, Rose, check it out. I think I finally got it.”

Rose looks up from her reading, and sees Dave hold his hands out over his crow corpse.

There’s a beat, and then the odd pull she’s always felt towards her brother tugs sharply.

The crow’s broken wings twitch, and then flutter. With a sound of grinding bones and garbled words, the roadkill gets off the ground and launches itself into the air; trailing black feathers in its wake.

Rose parts her lips in an _oh_ of gentle surprise, and watches the undead thing spiral awkwardly in the air for a few seconds. It limps only twenty feet from them, and then falls back to the playground’s grassy ground. Dead once again.

Rose raises her hands, and claps for her brother’s achievement.

Dave wipes the light sweat off his forehead. He’s getting better, but it still takes all his energy and concentration. “Got a mouse to do the same thing last night. They won’t go more than a few feet, but I’m getting closer.”

“Can you get it to do that again?” Rose asks, setting her book aside to get up and go after the bird. It’s still dead as she approaches, and the burst eye socket stares up at her as she stands over it.

“Maybe? I think I need a rest first.”

Rose kneels, and reaches down; trailing her finger tips on the longest feathers. The whispers in the back of her head almost rise up again, as she feels the very traces of her brother’s magic.

Which it is. They’re magic, the both of them. It’s all very fake sounding, twins with magic and an eerie connection, but they’re old enough now to know it’s real. And, old enough to know to hide it.

Their parents don’t know. They haven’t talked about their abilities in years. Not since they learned no one would believe them, and that they’d be threatened with separation if they didn’t let go of their fantasies.

Rose plucks a few feathers containing the most remnants Dave’s magic, and tucks them into the small handbag over her shoulders. Her intuition says they’ll be useful later for something or other, and she knows to listen to that intuition.

Dave doesn’t manage to get the crow to fly again, but it does an amusing half dance on the ground. Its broken beak opening and closing with whispery voices as its mangled feet struggle to follow Dave’s commands. It’s gruesome even by their standards, but it scarcely bothers either of them.

 

 

 

The only place they’ve ever felt content is by each other’s sides. Sleepovers at each other’s houses or sharing desks and lunch tables at school. Sitting on benches side by side or pressing close to one another while they walk through crowds. Going home to their own houses is hard, and days spent without each other are long and empty feeling.

They’re lucky their parents stayed on good terms after their birth, that they can move freely to each other’s rooms depending on which house they like the most that week.

Rose’s is filled with book shelves and scribbled notes hung to the walls. Lights and crystals she finds in shops downtown hung and placed according to what feels best. Soft baskets of yarns and sharp knitting needles sit next to jars of little things Rose feels inclined to pick up and keep. It’s messy and vacillates between being plunged into darkness, or having the windows thrown open to let in as much light as possible.

Dave’s is filled with jars of dead things and scribbled pictures tacked on the walls. Odds and ends of things from thrift shops and objects he’s found in ravines and alleyways, haphazardly placed on shelves and sills. CDs and records piled high on tables alongside DJ equipment and cameras that Dave cares for and uses obsessively. It’s even messier than Rose’s room and the same darkness and light vacillation happens there.

There’s one bed in each of their rooms, and they always share when they stay in each other’s homes. Skinny limbs tangled and pushing against one another as they sleep. In Dave’s home they experiment with his cameras, or mix collaboration music, or open up the jars of sometimes undead creatures and see what they can get them to do. In Rose’s home they dissect movies and book plots, hold utterly serious rap sessions while Rose knits and Dave draws, or try using the little things Rose collects and their combined words and drawings to make something strange happen.

It doesn’t matter whose home they’re in, they feel comfortable so long as their twin is with them. When they’re apart for lengths of time, it’s draining and miserable. They’ve never been apart for more than a few days, during a summer break where neither of their parents could drive them between houses for almost a week, and they’ve never wanted to try going longer.

Rose is sent to a summer camp one year, one that is far from the city and deep in the wilderness. Her mother sends her hoping it will give her daughter a break from the migraines she gets in the city.

Rose makes it eight days before she begins to fall ill, and starts seeing figures on the edges of her vision. Haunting whispers rises in her ears and numbness climbs up her limbs. She’s eleven when this happens, and it’s one of the worst experiences of her life.

Dave feels the same effect at the same rate, migraines assaulting him constantly in the city without Rose’s presence to ease them. He feels the numbness same as her, but instead of whispers he hears thudding beats that nearly deafen him.

The counsellors of the camp call Rose’s mother the eighth day, because Rose faints from the strain and has to be sent to a hospital. Dave faints the same time, states away, and blearily regains consciousness as Rose is woken. His father takes him to the hospital as well, and Dave feels every second tick by agonizingly slow as they waste time there.

There’s nothing physically wrong with him, not that they can find. But Dave already knew that.

He just needs to see Rose again, and hundreds of miles away his sister feels the same.

It’s almost more painful, the waiting period for his sister to disembark the plane, than the days without her had been. Dave and their father wait in the airport terminal, Dave fending off his father’s concern about him being up and about so soon after fainting.

It feels like color rushes back into the world when Rose reappears.

Rose feels the same, and they drop pretenses they never let go of, and run across the floor. It’s like breathing air again, being in the same room and so close. Their parents make concerned and soothing sounds around them as they hug, and neither Rose nor Dave really hears them.

They finally get to one of their homes, and seclude themselves immediately.

“I think we’d die if we were apart,” Rose tells him, her voice creaky as they huddle together in her room. They’ve only been reunited for a few hours, and it’s not been long enough they can even think of separating. “I think we’d shrivel up and there’d be nothing left.”

Dave’s glasses are off for once, in the comforting darkness of his sister’s room. He nods, and presses a little closer to Rose’s side. “Bones, maybe. But yeah, not much else.”

“…did it hurt for you, too?”

“…yeah. It hurt a lot.”

Rose puts her head on Dave’s, and doesn’t miss the aching emptiness she’d been feeling the past week. “I’m never letting our mother send me anywhere ever again.”

“Nah?”

“No.”

Dave considers the statement for a moment, and then decides he won’t let their father ever do the same to him. “Okay. Good. It got kind of boring around here without you anyway.”

 

 

 

Their parents don’t try to separate them like that again, which is a blessing on their part, since Rose and Dave would have fought them tooth and nail if they had.

It’s not a hard conclusion to come to, that there’s something deeper to the connection between than just tugs and pulls. Rose’s books give a number of options as to what it is, a curse, a gift, an omen- the list goes on.

Dave decides so long as they’re not apart, he doesn’t really care what the connection is. Rose is welcome to her overthinking; he’s fine as long as they stay together.

They’re getting older, and they both know they don’t have a typical sibling relationship. They don’t make any lasting friendships in school, and have scarcely ever felt the need to spend time with anyone other than each other. By all means, the way they get on each other’s nerves sometimes, they should at least want a breather now and again.

But they don’t. Sleepovers could go on infinitely and playdates could last forever for all they care. Being together is just _right_ , and Rose deduces it’s likely a side effect of the connection. Dave shrugs when she tells him that, and he tells her in turn that he’s fine with things being like this.

Rose still wonders, and pours through as many books and articles an eleven year old, then twelve year old, then thirteen year old can get her hands on. Dave reads over her shoulder, flops his legs across her lap, or just sits pressed to her side while she does. He zones out, listening to music or just reaching out to feel the thrum he can feel anywhere he goes if he tries, and lets Rose put her spooky intuition through its paces.

They go on a family road trip when they’re thirteen. Neither of them knows for sure which parent had _that_ brilliant idea- cramming them all into the car for hours on end, just a fantastic experience- but it ends up being something life changing.

They end up in some backwater town, halfway across the country and in the middle of nowhere, with no wifi and nothing to do other than sit at a café table while their parents try to find a mechanic in town. Dave’s headphones are on and he’s drawing out a complex spell circle onto his napkin. Rose is knitting her seventh scarf that week to keep her temper from snapping. He’ll scrunch up the napkin and not even bother using it afterwards. She’ll set the scarf on fire along with a collection of herbs in her bag for good luck later on. Neither of them has to explain this is going to happen, they both just know it will.

Neither of them realizes it until she’s already standing in front of their table; that a presence that thrums in Dave’s ears and drowns out his music in _right there_ , that a source of power and influence is _so close_ to Rose her vision nearly whites out.

They snap out of their respective meandering spellwork, Dave's headphones shoved off his ears and Rose's needles held like weapons- the both of them staring at the woman standing over their table.

“Oh my,” The woman says, wide red lips parting in a grin. “A soul split between twins, how amazing! I’ve never seen this happen and both halves remain so healthy.”

Rose’s intuition and foresight finally clears, and she gets a good look at the woman. Her thick black mane is wild and untamed down her back, and the black dress she wears seems to float without wind. Dave is still stuck listening to the dull thudding the woman’s presence is inducing in his ears. He’s never heard someone’s existence make so much effect on the time surrounding them; it’s dizzying how much power she probably has over it.

“I’m sorry, what?” Rose asks, breaking the silence.

“And budding little witches at that,” The woman continues brightly, staring at the napkin and scarf like she knows exactly what they are. “Aren’t you two just something special!”

“Uh, I don’t know who you think you are, lady, but witches aren’t real,” Dave says, casually covering his circles with his elbow. The woman’s ageless eyes go to him, and he lets none of the uneasiness he feels show on his face. “Pretty sure you should just move on and find some other poor tourist kids to tease.”

The woman laughs, and Rose and Dave both feel she’s got too many teeth for a human. “I suppose I could, but I feel like I’ve got some valuable information you might enjoy hearing. Or not, it really depends on which perspective you want to have. It could clear up some important question you’ve got about yourselves, your powers- or it could result in you getting involved in things you’re not ready for, and bringing all sorts of disaster into your lives. Such is how it goes with young witches!”

Rose and Dave exchange furtive glances with one another.

_Should we trust her?_

_Fuck if I know._

Rose’s intuition draws her towards the woman, prompting queries she’s been holding close for years now. Dave feels the steady influence the woman has on their environment, and kind of wants to know how she’s doing it.

They end up following her back to her house, towards the edge of town. They text their parents they’ve found some local kids to goof around with, and that they’ll be preoccupied until evening.

The woman introduces herself along the way as Aradia, and the information she gives them is indeed important answers to them, their powers, and just what the strangeness of their lives really means.

It makes the miserable experience of the road trip worth it, especially when Aradia gifts to them both a collection of books about necromancy, chrono manipulation, future sight, charm creation, and soul magicks.

She doesn’t give them a number to call her at, or an email address, or even her full name. Just a smile and some advice to go with her gifts.

“Names have power, and while you two are very cute, I can’t give you any over mine,” Aradia tells them solemnly, though she’s still smiling. There are too many teeth in her jaw, and Rose and Dave continue to find that unnerving. “Remember that as you delve deeper, alright? I know a few friends who didn’t and ended up losing all sorts of important things because of it. Oh! And I know its a few years off yet, but I’d say you should head a few states west from where we are now. You’ll find what you’re looking for there, I promise.”

Rose purses her lips, and tries not to let her arms tremble under the weight of the books. “We’re not looking for anything, though. And we’re hardly old enough to move out-”

“Ah ah ah, I said its a few years off, remember?” Aradia reminds with a finger waggle. “And you will be, trust me. And you’ll find it there.”

Dave scoffs. “Yeah, and that doesn’t sound like something you got straight out of a dollar store novella.”

Aradia laughs and it makes the thick red beads around her neck clack against each other. Rose blinks, and for a second sees horns curling around the woman’s head. Then they’re gone, and Aradia is simply a darkly brown woman with too much hair and a disconcerting smile.

She sends them on their way before the sun sets, and when Rose and Dave glance back towards the quaint cottage, with a bursting garden and cheerily painted shutters, they find it an abandoned and overgrown homestead looking like it’s been empty for decades.

They exchange a look, and decide to not return to the house again. Rose’s intuition leads her away from the house and it’s now ghostly aura, and Dave’s senses are still picking up a thrum of steady power. They opt to not try their chances anymore with a witch far more powerful and old than either of them.

 

 

 

Being two halves of one soul is somehow not a startling revelation. On a level, Rose and Dave knew all along. It certainly explains why distance is so painful, and why they’re so content to be in each other’s spaces, and why there’s a steady, ever present pull that draws them to one another.

“Do you think this means we were meant to be one person?” Dave asks one night, staring up at the ceiling of his room. “Like, we were one squishy soul, and then boom- something split us up and we got two bouncing babes instead of one? Damn, who would we have been if we’d stayed together? A combo of me and you, probably. Dose. Rave. Shit, I say we would’ve been Rave; a combo of my awesomeness and your secret wild side, Rose. Rave would’ve changed the world.”

“I suppose we’ll have to work together to accomplish what our theoretical combined self was never able to,” Rose replies, her needles clacking together as she leans against the foot of Dave’s bed. “Our partnership will last longer than I expected, then. How tedious.”

“And here I thought you loved me. That you found my charm and wit endearing.”

“Oh fear not brother dearest, I mean none of it and I love you as much as I am able.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Dave reaches out to tug on the yarn being knitted into the hat Rose is making. She gives a warning stab at his grabby hand in response. Dave wisely retracts his hand.

They settle into a silence, the only sounds the low volume ambient tracks Dave loaded into his laptop playing in the background, and Rose’s clacking needles. It’s comfortable, and a situation they’ve been in many times over the years.

Dave’s eyes drift behind his sunglasses, and follow the length of Rose’s legs. She’s wearing shorts in the summer heat, and it’s exposed the pale skin she usually hides under skirts and pants.

Rose’s eyes don’t leave her knitting, but her peripheral vision gives her enough of Dave’s sprawled body to know what he looks like at the moment. He’s in a sleeveless top, and it puts his hundreds of freckles on display for anyone to see.

They’re nearly fourteen and this is the fifth day in a row they’ve remained nearly exclusively in each other’s presences. They’re partially waiting for a point where they want to be alone again, and as usual, have yet to reach it.

Rose returns her full attention to knitting, and Dave’s eyes return to the ceiling. They stay in silence until its bedtime, and they spread across the futon they’ve dragged out onto the floor of Dave’s bedroom.

They’re still sharing a bed, even though there’s now the futon as well as Dave’s (ironically enough) twin sized mattress. The split soul thing sort of explains why, but not really.

 

 

 

Rose delves deeper, like Aradia had known she would. It’s nearly a mistake that costs her everything.

The empty half of her soul, now that she knows it’s there, why it exists, and reasons behind it- it wants to fill itself. It pushes her to experiment with the texts of the books Aradia gave her, as well as the darker contents of other books she’s picked up over the years. She needs to find something to fill the void in the missing half of herself, because the older she gets the less Dave’s mere presence can soothe it.

Dave feels similarly, and like Rose, doesn’t tell his twin. They’re fifteen and a half, and the empty half of him wants to fill itself. He casually reads through the books Aradia gave them, and tries out more complex magicks. He brings to life almost a dozen crows, and keeps them that way for over a day. It’s more than he was ever able to do as a child, and he’s sort of proud of how good he’s getting.

Rose experiments with just how far she can push her foresight and other abilities. She turns to older spells, ancient rituals, to test herself. She needs more of the powers she’s been gaining steadily- a part of her thinks it will finally close up the missing piece of her. Another part of her just wants to prove she can do this, that she’s advanced and powerful enough to.

Dave helps her, because this is something Rose clearly really wants, and even if the illustrations of the grimoire make him a tad unsettled, he’ll assist her in the latest ritual she’s attempting.

They clear space in the attic of Rose’s large home; set out all the materials they’ll need for the ritual, and begin preparations. Dave hands his sister the things she needs as she hold her hand out for them, and their fingers brush over and over as he does.

Rose’s voice fills the large attic as she walks in circles, her magic causing the salt to fall exactly over the lines she’s drawn. Dried and fresh plants are placed in their spots, and she takes the bowl of salt water from her brother as she finishes the incantation.

She swallows the essence of the sea, and her eyes roll back in her head as she extends her mind’s eye beyond the mortal realm.

Dave hovers- no, very casually chills outside the magical circle as his sister does her thing. His hands are in his pockets and he doesn’t wipe his palms against the fabric there. He feels the tug of Rose’s magic on his connection with her, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up the stronger the tug gets.

He’s not ready for the sudden tear at the center of his chest, at his _soul,_ and nearly falls flat on his face as something that isn’t Rose seizes hold of him.

Rose is lost. She’s lost and she’s made a mistake. She’s so little, so insignificant, nowhere strong enough to hold her own against the elder gods and the furthest abyssal rings- she’s lost and drowning and everything is cold and sharp and _dark-_

-she feels thorns growing in her skin, the weight of brine and salt filling her lungs as she tries to breathe, the endless booming voices of the hivemind she was so foolish to try contacting-

\- oh ͏Ro̧se ͘R͞o̶se ͡R̵o̧s͜e͢- ̨s͞o̕ ̨li̶t̶t̡le ̶so͡ f͢r̡a̵gi̸l̛e- a͡ ̡you͘ng͢l̷in̡g a͏ fl̕ędg̡ing a҉ ţi͏n̕y͘ l͞it͢t̢l̡e ta͝ngl͏ebu͝ddy ̧t͞oo n̕e̷w̕ to ev̨e͝n wi̷ths̛t̢a̴nd the ̢so̸ftest͘ ͢of̡ touc͞h̕es -

-she’s breaking, she’s dying, she’s nothingness, she's-

 _“ROSE!”_ Dave shouts in her face, and Rose’s mind snaps back into her body.

She’s back. She’s back and Dave is clutching her to his chest like he’s never going to let go again.

She coughs, and black comes out as she does. Dave lets her turn in his grip, and vomit black essence onto the ritual circle. It soaks into the salt and chalk and starts steaming immediately. It gets all over her ruined dress and Dave’s pants.

He pushes her sweaty bangs out of her violet eyes, and looks at her with his exposed red ones. He doesn’t seem to care they’re kneeling in the middle of a puddle made from unspeakable things.

“Oh my god,” He says, openly afraid in a way he never lets show. “Please tell me you’re never fucking doing this again, I swear to every fucking god you’ve ever made me pay tribute to- you are _never fucking doing this again.”_

Rose’s head throbs, and she barely has strength to grip the collar of Dave’s shirt. “Agreed,” She croaks. “The elder gods do not- do not take kindly to fledgling witches disturbing them.” Her head throbs again, and she winces. “How long-?”

“You stood there for like, forty-five minutes and then started having a fucking _seizure,_ Rose. What the fuck was that about?”

“…I believe that was a many angled hivemind testing my strength. I failed utterly, obviously speaking.”

Dave is still pale looking, and Rose can’t find the energy to get herself up.

Whispers, louder than they’ve ever been, rise in Rose’s ears. She still feels the thorns under her skin, scraping her raw. The taste of brine remains in her throat and she feels like water is in her lungs. She feels all this and knows she’s going to have a price to pay for her presumptions.

“I do believe I’ve made a grave mistake,” Rose whispers, feeling young and foolish. The void she’d aimed to close remains, and she grips Dave’s collar tighter. It isn’t enough.

However, what _is_ enough is the way Dave draws her into a near sitting position, gentle like he’s afraid she’ll break, and then presses a desperate kiss to her stained lips.

He’d felt her nearly slip away, nearly be sucked into the yawning forever that the furthest ring is. He’d felt the ever present connection between them almost break. He felt himself nearly break with it.

Rose is the other half of his soul, literally and metaphorically. It’s more heretical than anything they’ve ever done, the necromancy, the luck manipulation, the cheating with future and past knowledge- but he’s been staring at his sister for years now and wondering what it would feel like to kiss her.

Rose nearly died, and Dave acts on impulse because of that.

It’s a short kiss, and when he breaks off Rose is staring at him with uncharacteristic shock. She’s rarely surprised by anything, but it looks like a second miracle is taking place here tonight.

“Uh,” Dave says, his brain catching up with his actions. “Shit.”

Rose’s black stained lips remain parted in shock, and her bloodshot eyes blink twice.

Dave doesn’t know what to do. He’s fucked up so catastrophically it might be even worse than Rose’s attempt to do the mental tango with an elder god. “Can we pretend I didn’t do that?”

Rose blinks again, and then shuts her startled gape.

“No, we can’t.”

And she tugs him forwards too fast to react, and kisses Dave.

Dave’s sunglasses get knocked off his head, clattering to the floor. Rose’s head throbs a few times in protest, and she ignores the pain. Strength flows back into her arms and she winds them around her brother’s neck, drawing them tighter together. Dave wraps his arms around her waist, and holds her close as he can.

The longer they remain like that, the less the empty half of them feels empty.

There’s thick black liquid soaked into their clothes, the smell of burnt minerals in the air, and countless things wrong with what they’re doing.

They keep kissing, because while Dave has been wondering what Rose’s lips felt like, she’s been wondering the same of him.

They were always one half each of their shared soul, and halves are always meant to be put back together.

 

 

 

Rose ends up taking the longest, hottest shower of her life after that. To wash the damp darkness off her skin and erase the feeling of a freezing ocean. She stands under the spray, spitting black gobs into the drain, and clings to the revitalized connection she has to her brother. The sensation of cold thorns won’t leave her, but Dave’s intangible presence is warm and real enough to let her ignore those sensations.

Dave cleans up the disaster of a ritual, which involves him being painfully careful with the ingredients as he puts them away- mixing things not on purpose can have really, really terrible results- and then scratching his head about what the hell he’s supposed to do with the black stains everywhere. He stares at the evaporated goo shit Rose had thrown up, and feels his sister’s tug on their connection. It pushes the image of her twitching and choking on the floor out of his head, which is a relief because he hasn’t been able to stop seeing it for the past hour.

Dave throws a dusty old carpet over the black stains. It’s good enough.

When he goes downstairs, Rose is standing in her room. She’s in the lavender bathrobe their mom bought her last Christmas, and her short hair is hanging lank and wet around her face. Her lips are still black. Dave gets the feeling they probably won’t stop being black, ever.

He stops in the doorway, hovering uncertainly. They’ve crossed a lot of lines tonight, and exactly what are you supposed to do anyway after you made out with your twin?

“So,” Dave says. “Are we doing the incest thing, now? Or was that like, a onetime near-death deal on the account of serious swooning. Um. If we’re calling it that or whatever.”

Rose raises one eyebrow.

“I’m not sure Dave, what _does_ one call an intensely desperate make out session between siblings, if not incest?”

“Uh. A sign of very bad parenting?”

“Dave, just come here.”

Rose holds out her hand to him, and Dave doesn’t hesitate to step forwards and take it.

Their fingers curl together, fitting perfectly. Dave still has his blackened pants on and the remnants of used spell ingredients on his arms, the smell enough to nearly make their noses wrinkle. Rose’s disaster hair and bone white complexion look all the worse with her stained lips, and the bloodshot sclera of her eyes only reinforces the obviousness of her mistakes.

But this isn’t one of them, or maybe it’s the biggest of them all.

“How long?” Rose asks Dave.

“About two and some years,” Dave answers her. “You?”

“About the same,” Rose replies. “We always did tend to do things together, one way or another.”

Dave slides his other hand into hers, and they stand in the middle of her room like that. Linked together physically and spiritually. Their physical closeness is already easing the shock and terror of the night, soothing the fear they’d gone through.

They lean in at the same time, slowly, watching each other’s reactions- and press their lips together. The effect on their shared soul is immediate, lighting up the connection with sparks and warmth.

It’s almost definitely the biggest mistake Rose has ever made and the biggest for Dave as well.

It’s almost definitely what they’ve been trying to find for so long.

Rose’s lips don’t taste like burnt salt anymore, and Dave feels her chapped skin drag on his. Dave tastes a little like the half-assed dinner of mac and cheese they’d made earlier, and Rose somehow isn’t even slightly disgusted.

It feels right, for however wrong it is.

They end up curled close in her bed, just holding each other as the new strength of their connection ebbs and flows. Their mother is out of town for business trip, which was why they were doing the ritual tonight in the first place. Now, they put the magic Rose had conjured out of their minds, and take barely guilty comfort in the fact that they have another three days before their mother even starts heading home.

Dave took his own shower before this, and changed into his PJs. Rose cards her fingers through his damp hair as he lays his head on her chest, listening to the steady beat of his sister’s heart. A steady beat that had stuttered tonight, and made his own internal metronome miss a tick as well.

Rose breathes in time with her brother, the thorns under her skin retreating little by little the longer they remain close. The whispers are hardly there in her ears, and the stinging bile that had burned her throat earlier doesn’t bother her. So long as Dave is near, and they’re able to do something akin to this, she imagines she might be able to manage the new afflictions.

She supposes that fate decided somewhere along the way that their magicks weren’t enough of an oddity for them. They had to be incestuous as well.

“You ever feel like life is just trying to screw with us as much as it can?” Dave asks in a mumble, cheek pressed to her breastbone.

“All the time,” Rose replies, staring at the ceiling.

“This is like, some kind of Twin Peaks bullshit combined with Lovecraft and one of those ye olde forbidden love dramas mom likes. What the fuck.”

“What the fuck indeed. I do believe this adds to the grounds of a potential witch hunt against us.”

“Oh fucking joy.”

Rose pauses her gentle scratching on Dave’s scalp.

“Dave, do you want this? We’re putting ourselves at risk, and this… well, it’s not something we can ever share with anyone.”

Dave thinks about the kiss, Rose nearly dying, and the sensation of both.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do, Rose.”

“Good, because I don’t think I could stop after this.”

“Me neither.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

“You have to find something to fill it up,” Aradia says, perusing her shelves and shelves of thick books. There’s so many skulls perched on or beside those books, Dave is very nearly jealous. “The empty halves of your soul need something in it; otherwise you just float through life like a ghost. I would know, I was one!”

“…excuse me, how were you a ghost, and yet are now standing in front of us very much alive?” Rose questions cautiously.

Aradia hums, and pulls a book off the shelf. “There was an accident with one of my former friends some years ago. She killed me to enact some convoluted revenge plot she had going, and I spent a while as a specter,” She gives Dave and Rose a wide grin. “I ended up losing most of my soul because of that experience, and let me tell you, it was just so boring. Most of the time I felt nothing, and other times I felt like the emptiness in me was trying to suck everything in to fill itself up. It was so annoying, honestly.”

Dave’s lips turn into a thin line. The longer he and his sister remain in Aradia’s house- which feels as odd as its owner does- the more he feels on edge. Not that he’s showing it.

“So what’d you do,” Dave asks casually, tentatively feeling the very tail ends of Aradia’s presence. She feels way old, and yet, so young. Just plain wrong all around. “How’d you fix the empty soul thing?”

Aradia grins at them both.

“I filled it up with other things.”

And for a split second, Dave’s cautious sensing is pushed back against _hard-_ and he feels a wave of old power he can’t comprehend the depth of. Deep and dark, but also light and stingingly bright.

Then it’s gone, and Aradia deposits a pile of books on the coffee table.

Dave’s hand reaches across the small space between him and Rose on the couch, and her fingers link with his. Rose feels just as unsettled by whatever that’d been- she didn’t feel it quite the same way, but the _significance_ of Aradia’s power feels too large for one mortal being. It’s dizzying.

“You two should be on your way now,” Aradia says, calm and pleasant as though she hadn’t just whammied the both of them.

Rose tells Dave later that she’d seen horns around Aradia’s head. Dave believes her without any effort.

They don’t see Aradia again for years, and they make the mistakes and achievements she’d vaguely predicted them making.

 

 

 

Rose slowly learns to cope with having the scars she’s gained from her brush with the furthest ring. Dave does as well. They also learn how to navigate their newfound incestuous relationship, which is a never ending adventure of discovery and achingly wonderful experiences.

The first night after it- after a lot of things, after a lot of big events in a single evening that change everything- Rose wakes from a nightmare that spears icy fear right through her heart.

She gasps awake, feeling the residual crushing darkness of the depths she’d dreamt herself to be in, and it’s only because Dave is there immediately- he’d never left, he would never- and reassuring her that she’s not there, it’s just a dream, she’s here with him and they’re safe.

The new thorns under her skin and the swelling ocean inside her lungs make Rose nearly incoherent with pain, and Dave does his best to make that pain go away. Combing his fingers through her hair as she shakes, letting Rose press every inch of her body to his, kisses pressed to her lips and skin- anything and everything to strengthen the bond between their halves of soul, driving away the nightmares.

Rose never cries- not even when they were kids- and hearing her stifle a sob into Dave’s shoulder is strikingly painful. He regrets not stopping her before this, because he can already tell the effects of their mistake are going to be lasting.

The remnants of her spiralling dream are too much for Rose to handle- they’re already trying to draw her back in and she _will not let them-_ so she catches her brother’s lips and kisses him. It’s only been a few hours since they’d confessed their feelings, but already the actions she’s taking feel natural.

With his sister’s hot lips on his, teeth scraping and all messy desperation, Dave opts to not think about their future consequences anymore. Just enjoy the sparking, glowing connection between the both of them, and let Rose erase her nightmares however she needs.

They wake again long past sunrise, tangled together and aching deep down from the impossibly powerful attack they’d suffered. It’s made better having a warm body beside them, wrapped around them, and utterly familiar in every way.

It’s the first morning of many where they can act on the impulses they’ve been holding back for years.

Rose’s eyes are still bloodshot for days after, and they discover that her magic has been changed. Originally she’d had just burning white light at its center- now there’s a second pool to draw from. It’s dark, and black, and feels like syrupy tar when Rose prods it mentally. Without a doubt, it is residue from the elder god she’d visited.

Rose chastises herself- who knows what that pool could turn into some day, how it could affect her half of soul, how it could affect _Dave’s_ half of soul- and she ends up winding around their mother’s house, going in metaphorical and literal circles with future what-ifs.

Eventually, after she’s gone through close to the fortieth round, Dave slides his hand into hers, and backs Rose against the wall. He’s waited for her to sufficiently work through and then work through _again_ what their major concerns might be, and now it’s time for her to calm down.

Kissing is probably the best technique for that ever, and it’s a little frustrating that his younger self was too much of a blind chicken to not see Rose’s mutual interest sooner.

Rose’s brother removes his shades for once, in the dark of the hallway, and kisses her with all the impulsion he tends to have sometimes. A hundred worries beckon her attention, but Dave is here and he’s asking her to let go just for a little while.

She lets go. It’s the first of many times she does in that manner.

They end up grinding against each other and the wall, mouths pressed together sloppily and hands touching every bit of skin they can under their shirts. It chases out the worries and concerns completely. There’s nothing but them, pleasure, and the burning connection between their soul halves.

“We should have done this years ago,” Rose whispers, holding her brother’s face in her palms; breathless and marvelling at what she’s lucky enough to have been given.

“ _Fuck,_ I know,” He whispers back, and lets his twin hold him still while she kisses him until sparks flood his vision. This is everything he’s ever wanted and he’s never, ever going to give it up. He prays he won’t ever have to even try.

Eventually, they have to stop acting like uncivilized creatures and actually address their newest problems. It takes a fair while to do so.

Rose continues to get nightmares, and the pool of dark energy next to her original magic doesn’t drain away. Dave spends every night he can close to her, and sticks to her side every day down to the very last second he can manage. It’s a bit nerve wracking, trying to figure out if the taint- as Rose is calling it- is going to negatively affect anything more than it has. Will it poison her? Drag her mind back to the furthest ring? Straight up kill them both???

A month passes without any bigger incident than nightmares, which get easier and easier to handle, and they both release the breath they’d been holding. They’re not in the clear- not by a long shot- but they’re fairly certain they’re out of the danger zone.

Rose wears black lipstick to cover the purple tinged stains on her skin from then on. She’s always been partial to gothic fashion sensibility anyways; it’s not that big of a change.

It’s a bit of a hassle in Dave’s opinion, since black lipstick leaves black lipstick stains, and it’s sort of hard to make out discretely when one of them is a human ink stamp. Rose just clicks her tongue at his frustration, and finds places not quite as obvious as his lips to leave her stains. Dave finds he is very okay with those other places receiving attention and quits his bitching.

Their laundry, Dave’s especially, begins to be a bit of a secretive process. Questionable stains of all sorts are abundant, even more so than their early years with spellmaking.

On a level, they know what they’ve fallen into is wrong in so many ways. They also consciously know that they couldn’t stop now even if they tried.

Rose has blacker magic than they’re used to now, all their secrets are out in the open, and they can hardly keep their hands off each other anymore. Maybe the event that had triggered the collapse of their self-control was a terrible one that will haunt them for years to come, but in the dead of night in one of their beds, or in an alleyway partway home from school in broad daylight, or in a ravine they know as well as each other- their new closeness makes it all worth it.

 

 

 

Dave’s camera film fills itself with photos of their life. Stills, action shots, pin-ups, he’s got everything these days and nearly all of it centers on Rose.

He still takes pictures of strange phenomena (that he usually helps create), and particularly artful roadkill, and of general this and that that catches his attention. But now that he can take as many sensual photos of Rose he wants- and not risk her finding them and going _oh Dave, whatever will the neighbors think of this incestuous collection of photography?-_ he will take every chance he’s given and use it to the fullest.

Pictures of Rose with her hair down, pictures of her with her hair up; lips painted or lips unpainted and with their stains on display; late nights when she’s wide awake and studying her own notes for a new ritual; early mornings when she’s half asleep and heavy lidded and glowing despite it. Afternoons in the ravine, leaves and light in her hair- in their kitchens, a rare toothy smile or rarer giggle caught in mid action- spread across a bedsheet, pale and freckled and looking only at him with beguiling violet eyes.

Dave’s camera film gets filled up a lot faster these days, now that he can take pictures of all those things and not have to hide it. All that film, and all the random mixes he makes on his computer, dedicated to Rose. His terrible, nosy, infinitely sarcastic twin that knows every which way to drive him up the wall; that’s seen every stupid thing he’s ever done from a first row seat, and teased and tormented him for each one. He loves her so much he can barely breathe, even if she’ll never stop being his dumb older sister who takes joy in making him flustered and left tongue tied.

Rose in turn takes full advantage of their erased barriers, and nips and scratches and explores the bits of her brother she’s never been able to fully. She has every inch of him all to herself, as he has her, and it’s almost more wonderful than being able to spin as many charms and stories about him as she wants.

Her violin is her favorite instrument for magic- second to her needles- and pressing the pads of her fingers to it, and letting all her feeling flow through it is indeed magical. Her songs and written spells no longer have to withhold themselves; not when the person they often drift to, describing and praising, knows their intent in full.

Her bow strikes the strings and her pages of words spill out into the open as it does. Little thoughts about Dave during quiet moments, bigger thoughts about him during heated and fiery moments; notes of their childhood and notes of their early teenagehood; quotes and sayings plucked from her memory and reframed as pieces to her favorites moments in life; whole winding hours spent turning her inexplicable and spiralling love for the stupid, stupid boy she’d shared a womb with for nine months into lyrical poems and music. Songs and siliques about the boy that drives her crazy, that calms her down from migraines and anxious nights, that has always been there to make her laugh, or despair, or feel whole and loved in a way she’s never been able to speak.

She’s never been able to share these songs and words, not without Dave making his patented look of, _goodness Miss Lalonde, that sounds like something only a flat out psychotic, flipped-right-off-the-handle, honest to goodness crazy broad would say,_ at her. It’s easy as anything, pouring it out into the air and laying it spread to see, now that Dave listens to the songs and reads the poems with a vaguely mystified look. One that resembles the one he makes after a time spent getting sweaty under the sheets, where he doesn’t seem like he believes what’s happening.

Rose feels she sometimes makes the same face, since there remain moments when she can’t believe her own two eyes that her brother lays in a bed with her like he does. That any of this is possibly real. Dave whispers that he does feel like that, like there’s no way they’ve actually managed to make this happen, and Rose’s heart clenches a little as he says so.

They spend much of their teenage years like so. Writing a romance of their own making whenever they had a moment alone, and hiding their powers and love from everyone around them. Which isn’t that many people, seeing as neither of them has ever really made friends, and their parents are often too busy to mind their location or activities anymore.

But, it gets harder the longer they hide, to keep it hidden, and they realize quickly that they have to find a space to themselves. Somewhere that won’t ever result in them being exposed, for what they are and what they’ve done.

The answer comes to Dave a little before their graduation.

“Aw shit,” He says.

Rose hums questioningly. “What?”

“Aradia totally knew we’d be boning.”

That prompts Rose to look up from her novel reading on his bed. She puts down her book, and gives Dave a single raised eyebrow. A silent gesture to continue.

Dave leans back in his desk chair, and feels a little like he’s been perverted somehow by a time witch. “The whole cryptic message about us looking for something when we got older. Fuck dammnit, she meant us looking for a place to be a ‘cesty Strilonde tangle somewhere people wouldn’t find us out.”

Rose purses her lips.

“I do not know how comfortable I am that an older woman predicted two thirteen year old twins she knew for a scant few hours would be having intercourse later in life.”

“Yeah, shit, me neither. That’s just wrong on so many levels, more than borderline illegal.”

“I’m scandalized. And a little annoyed it took us this long to figure that out.”

“I feel violated, god dammnit. Is nothing scared?”

“We personally violate the laws of death and karma on a regular basis; I suppose this is divine retribution in the form of uncomfortable childhood nostalgia.”

“Those good old days of pretending we didn’t have awkward tiny teen boners for each other. Good times.”

“Quite.”

She smirks at him, and he smirks back. Incest humor, always fun.

With that uncomfortable realization- their meeting with Aradia becomes more and more disturbing the older they get- they set it aside for a later date, after they finish graduation and really have to begin thinking of their future.

In the end, they pack themselves into the shitty car their parents bought them as a joint grad gift, and head back to the town that changed a significant part of their lives. It’s a road trip not quite like the first one that way; mostly because they’re adults, in love, and completely unsupervised. Their younger selves only had one of those things going for them.

They take their time- definitely not because they’re both slightly to very nervous about sauntering back onto Aradia’s turf, right where she can find them and possibly not be so benevolent this time around, no siree- and meander their way across the state lines. A little aimless and kind of drunk on freedom. It’s- and Rose stifles a groan at Dave’s pun- damn near magical.

When Dave drives, he turns up the music and puts thoroughly sunscreened arm on the lip of the opened window. The charms hanging above their dash clack and swing, packets of herbs knocking into medallions and tiny skulls. Sometimes he sings, raps, really- but it’s a little off-key and it just makes Rose snicker and join in. Their rap offs are long and spiralling, and usually end in Dave calling foul on his twin. Rose knows too many obscure, made up sounding words, even for a witch that derives power from them. She just smiles and smarms when he does, and says he’s a sore loser. Dave, loudly scandalized, says she’s just lucky there’s no wifi for him to double check her bullshittery.

When Dave drives, Rose plants her pale feet on the dashboard and writes, or leans her head out the window and breathes the stinging wind of the highway. The summer sun drives the thorns and sea within her into hiding, and she revels in the unburdened feeling. She snarks and prods her brother, catches up on novels she’s writing or reading, and counts how many signs they pass that claim they’re all going to hell. She agrees with them wholeheartedly.

When Rose drives, she smacks Dave’s hands off the radio and CD controls and plays what _she_ wants to hear. Her alternative music tastes are near to or cross over with Dave’s, but he still whines and complains regardless; eventually leaning back in his chair and letting her have at it. The windows remain open when she drives, short hair blustering pleasantly and uncaringly becoming snarls. Her lips are makeup free and she quotes famous and obscure literature at Dave, to which he provides a scathing commentary about the need for further dick jokes. She breaks out the best of Shakespeare when he does, and they make as many phallic and vaginal metaphors as they can take before they have to pull over and make them real.

When Rose drives, Dave leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling through his sunglasses, zoning out or listening to whatever Rose is talking about that moment. Sometimes a combination of the two. He doodles on his notebooks, or himself, or Rose if she lets him; spells of protection, or luck, or longevity, or just good old phallic symbols known best as fourth grade level artistry of crude dicks. He listens to Rose compose poems on the fly, and adds his own touch to them as she goes; loudly, insistently, bold and uncaring of the smacks he receives on occasion. He samples her voice for later mixes, takes pictures of their surroundings and of her sun streaked face, and enjoys the steady tempo of their trip. A tempo that staccatos every few hundred miles; for a rest or quick nap, or for naughty activities on the side of the highway. Oh the blessings of having no parents around.

Eventually, they do arrive in the tiny backwater town they’d met Aradia in. They stay in a hotel as far from her decrepit house as they can- they might be boldfaced kickers of wasp nests and stubborn sons of bitches, but they’re not suicidal- and then head as directly west as they can from there. They don’t go anywhere close to Aradia’s place for multiple unspoken reasons.

They follow the maps and Rose’s intuition, which had perked up once they entered the limits of Aradia’s territory. Both lead them further and further from that small town, winding them past other small towns with names they barely register. They cross into mountain ranges, getting thicker with trees and brush by the mile, and Rose says, “We’re nearly there.”

“Yeah?” Dave asks, not needing more context than that. “How nearly.”

“Very nearly. I would say… another few hours at the most?”

“Well damn, about time. My bladder is crying for sweet, sweet release like ol’ faithful at high noon.”

“You _could_ use the side of the highway again.”

“And risk poison ivy bear mauling combo attacks? Nah thanks I’ll take the bladder infection.”

“Your charm never ceases to seduce, Strider.”

“Don’t you know it, Lalonde.”

It’s nearing nightfall when they roll into the outer limits of a tiny, _tiny_ valley town, and the moment Rose steps out she knows this is it.

The land feels alive, filled with opportunity and potential, but not in a way that cities do. In cities she’s sometimes blinded by the infinite potential paths and luck of people around her; here, there’s just the calm thrum of _maybe_ coming from bedrock that hasn’t moved in millennia. Something could happen here someday, but not today, and not for the length of any lifetime she might live. It’s almost completely quiet to her senses, with only spatterings of feedback from the couple hundred individuals living here.

Dave languidly exits the car, and feels the age and past in the ground beneath his feet. It’s solid and slow, unlike city foundations, which are made up of thousands and millions of tiny little pieces that are all different ages and levels of degradation. The spiralling mess of conflicting time in cities give him throbbing migraines, like Rose’s foresight does to her; here it’s just… calm. Gentle feeling, even. He doesn’t have to confirm with his sister that this is the place; he knows it just as well as she does.

Then his bladder makes an insistent demand of him, and he scurries towards the gas station entrance; Rose following behind him at a sedate and amused pace.

 

 

 

Their call back home is taken about as well as any of their bizarre demands have been over the years- RE: teenagers and preteens getting up to various magical shenanigans requiring odd and sometimes disturbing ingredients- and they talk their parents into the idea of them not leaving this lovely little town they’re just heads over heels with. Yes we thought this out, mom; no dad it’s not anywhere close to home, we’re only a little sorry about that; no it’s not because we met some cute girl and guy, it’s just such a wonderful town you’ve got to believe us…

Their parents can tell something is up, but not quite what. Such is what their experience raising two mischievous (witch) twins has always been.

Rose and Dave convince them of the idea anyways. They’re eighteen, they’ve got money Rose oh-so-luckily won in a raffle draw a year ago, by complete chance and no one can prove otherwise, and they’re at the age everyone makes their wild choices. This is theirs.

Their parents likely think this is a brash decision made by their children, and one that will be put to rest whenever they get bored of country life. Rose and Dave do nothing to wreck that delusion.

They have money, from Rose’s writing commissions online and Dave’s comic/music sites advertisement income, as well as the very, very large amount Rose won the year previous. They’ve got plenty for the purchase of a house, especially since their parents pitch in a bit to give them further budget breathing room.

They go and find the single realtor agent in town, and purchase her services the day after they arrive. She obviously thinks they’re dumbass city kids who want to try their hand at urban life, and will leave within the next month. Rose and Dave play up valley and Texan accents- neither of which they have, but are their favorites to fool people with- and fuck with her as much as they please.

“-and, like, are there any malls near here? Or salons? _Gawd_ , I can’t imagine not being able to shop properly with the girls when they come visit, and my _roots_ will show if I don’t get them done at _least_ once a week-”

“-ma’am, all I’m hopin’ for in this town is a few vape stores, maybe a vegan friendly establishment or two? Those lil animals, I can’t imagine chowin’ down on one, it’d haunt me in my dreams and interrupt my chakra flow somethin’ fierce-”

It goes without saying they have a hilarious time putting grey hairs in their realtor’s sensible bun. Especially since the moment they’re done doing business, they drop the accents and act, and very solemnly tell her how grateful they are for her help.

She gives them a squinty, pinched look, like she can’t tell if she wants to laugh or slap them both upside the head. They smirk and take the papers of ownership to their new abode.

Their new house is on the outskirts of town, beyond the outskirts really, and it’s a two bedroom, one bathroom, dark wooden ugly monstrosity no one should ever have wanted to buy. Rose and Dave loved it immediately.

From then on, they have a place for the first time ever that has all the freedom they could ever want. No eyes to see what sort of relationship they have, and no ordinary individuals to discover their magicks. They could take online university courses whenever they felt like, but they also have the option of just living off whatever money Rose magically wins (literally) through competitions and lotteries, and the commissions for artwork, writing, and music they both receive on occasion.

There’s also an option of opening an online store for custom charm and spell orders, but they set that old idea aside for later. They’ve had it knocking around for years now, a few days or weeks more won’t make it disappear.

They christen their new home in stages. Purchasing furniture online and returning back home for their other possessions comes first. Next, they decorate and organize it as they want; finally, after years of living in each other’s rooms, they meld their individual spaces completely and seamlessly. The final stage is making the first real dinner in their home, drinking wine and dressing to the nines at their shitty IKEA ordered table, and then only halfway finishing their dinners and opting to just skip right to dessert. Which is tearing each other’s clothes off and fucking on every surface they can.

They can’t get married, not legally at least, but it looks like they managed to have a honeymoon period regardless.

 

 

 

 _“When are you coming home?”_ Their mother asks them after a few months.

 _Probably never_ is the consensus between Rose and Dave.

There’s nothing about their new house that they dislike. Much as they bitch and moan about the hot water running out on occasion- some spells and mishaps and an eventual plumber fix that- or how cooking for themselves is a bit more of a challenge than they’d imagined- grocery shopping is an _experience_ when it’s R. Lalonde and D. Strider heading the shopping cart- their house is their new home, and it’ll be pried from their cold dead hands.

The tranquility of living outside the big city is perfect. There’s hardly any presence to their surroundings besides each other, and their migraines dry up faster than dead pine needles. They never have anyone on their property unless they’ve specifically called them, and there are no neighbors for miles. They’ve got one office for writing and DJ-ing, one large king size bed because they’re indulgent, a living room with a TV and plush couch and loveseat combo, and a kitchen and bathroom perfectly sized to two people who don’t mind being in each other’s spaces. There’s also a mudroom in the back with a stacked washer and drier, and a minimal amount of attic space for shoving their less used junk into.

It is, in two words, fucking amazing.

Best part of it- besides canoodling time being extended to whenever the fuck they want- is the fact that their rituals and magical shenanigans no longer have to be cleaned up right away. They’ve got all the time in the world for those activities, and that means they can work for days on one project or ten projects without a care to give.

They hang charms and skulls and plants on multiple surfaces. Leave spell diagrams and spell books out in plain sight. There are dead things in jars and dead things in the fridge and freezer, and Dave doesn’t have to bother hiding them anymore. There are ongoing sacrifices and magical weaves and long-term tinctures brewing throughout the house, and Rose only has to remember to clean them up when something starts burning wrong.

It’s messy, and tangled, and it’s a little bit of metaphor for the two of them.

It gets messier, and further tangled, during a week that Rose decides to go looking for a better ritual site. The garden is lovely, but using a ground so close to where they live is a little ill-advisable for the dark incantations and weaves they experiment with. Repeating spells in one place tends to build up energy, and well… sometimes that can have negative effects. Better to find somewhere further away and make that their official This Is Likely To Blow Up Somehow But Fuck It Let’s Do It Anyways experiment spot.

It’s been a number of years since they moved in at this point, and the situation has become a little dire. They’ll have to cleanse their much abused garden space sometime soon, lest they attract unscrupulous attention of the beings living in the forest. Which there are, as they’ve come to learn.

The world still has magic and mystery in it; it just hides from the sight of ordinary humans, in spaces with little to no human contact. The higher population of spirits and fair folk living in the mountain forest is part of what drew them here. An instinctual sense of belonging, since while they remain mostly human, they edge towards the side of inhuman more often these days. Space to truly delve into their powers has led them to new depths of magicks, and it will likely grow more obvious the longer they continue.

Perhaps Aradia’s explanation of herself will soon apply to them as well. Hm.

Dave is sleeping still as Rose dresses herself, taking the time to choose good hiking clothes. His faint breathing is the only sound besides the rustle of her clothing. It’s familiar and an easy metronome to follow as she prepares. Its later morning, enough that the hour isn’t insane feeling, but still early enough she’ll make productive progress before evening finds her.

Rose slides a cloth headband over and behind her ears as the last touch, to keep her bangs out of her face. As she turns from the vanity, she sees Dave’s lazily opened eyes looking at her.

“Goin’ out?” He mumbles, barely raising his head from the pillow. It throbs a little, since last night had been a marathon crafting session. There’s energy drink cans and questionable other liquids in mugs all over the dining table, among the corvid skulls and beads and paints he’s left out. Evidence of his painstaking efforts to complete his latest project.

Rose smiles, and slides back onto the oversized bed they don’t really need. She’s not bothered with lipstick today, so her black lips leave no marks as she kisses her brother’s stubbled chin. “I’m locating that new ritual site we so desperately require, dear. Unless you’d prefer to find an attracted or pissed off fae on our doorstep, one of these days.”

Dave grimaces. No thanks; fair folk are tricky to handle, since it can be either a seriously worth the trouble boon, or a seriously stupid fuckwad curse they have to unwind somehow. He pecks Rose’s cheek, and rolls the fuck back over to go back to sleep. “Lemme know what you find, I’ll come give it the Strider appraisal and possible approval sometime later. When it’s not insane to be awake.”

Rose tsks, and drops her pillow on his head as she leaves. Dave barely mutters a _fuck you very much and see you later bye_ and leaves it there. He’s too tired to care, and asphyxiation is supposed to be painless when you’re asleep, so.

Dave falls asleep before Rose even finishes lacing her hiking boots, and is dead to the world as she exits onto the back porch. Breathing in the clean air of the mountain, something Rose might never have imagined her younger self enjoying, she sets off with her bag of tools and a vague sense of which way she should go.

She follows the pointed direction, climbing the slowly rising mountain incline. It leads her to deeper parts of the forest, higher up and on sudden flat spaces along the mountainside. The only sounds are animals and wind- both of which she is wearing charms against- and she is faintly sorry she didn’t bring her violin along. The view is lovely enough it may warrant a composed tribute.

Someday, Rose promises herself as she continues on.

Her sense of _yes this way right here_ is getting stronger, now that she’s spent most of the day following it. She’s taking her time, since there are other good spots closer to her and Dave’s home, but an insistent feeling says she should keep pressing on. Curious, since she’s already found three sites that will work perfectly well.

Rose’s intuition is rarely wrong, so she follows it.

She’s passing through a part of the woods that is sparser than others. Trees spread out a little, the pine needles of them dropping down to weed out the weaker shrubs that might try growing there. It’s a break from finding her way through dense underbrush; she has twigs and sap and stains all over her, and Rose is just resigned to it at this point. There’s always the shower when she gets home, as well as a brother to bully into giving her a foot massage. Which he will, if he wants any access to skin higher than her calves tonight-

Rose’s thoughts cut off, a shiver running down her spine.

Something is here. Something that isn’t animal, fair folk, or spirit.

Something… powerful.

Rose spares a fleeting moment of panic- how could she have not noticed the presence sooner?- and reaches into her side bag for her needles, the prime channel for her destructive spells.

She doesn’t get a chance to draw them.

A scream barely has time to rise in Rose’s throat, as an enormous black creature bursts into the open. It’s big- big as or bigger than a bear- and it closes the scant distance between them faster than Rose can register. The rip-saw snarl shatters the quiet of the air around her, and its enormous paws come down on her shoulders before even the first words of an incantation can leave her lips.

 _Wolf,_ Rose realizes distantly through her blinding fear. _It’s a giant fucking wolf._

Said giant fucking wolf roars in her face; the sound a horrible mixture of howl and scream. Spittle and fangs are right above Rose’s face, and she stares wide eyed up at what is surely going to be what finally gets her. Not the terrors that still haunt her dreams, not a foolhardy experiment with magic, not even a mundane household or road accident- no, it’ll be a giant fucking wolf in the middle of nowhere. And Rose just can’t accept that.

She isn’t dead yet- _why isn’t she dead yet-_ so she brings up the most powerful, most destructive spell she knows, and starts chanting as fast as she can. Rose keeps chanting, words hurried and as precise as she can manage, and she watches the snarling maw hover above her face and keep hovering there.

She coils the power in her hands- which aren’t as pinned as she thought; it’s just her shoulders- and prepares to eviscerate the wolf on her down to its atoms.

Then, she pauses.

It keeps howling and screaming away, but it also keeps on not ripping her throat out or disembowelling her with those nasty claws. The longer Rose listens, in fact, the more the wolf sounds… pained, desperate.

Why isn’t it killing her?

Rose slowly widens her tunnel vision of just the massive wolf muzzle in front of her face, and looks a little closer at the rest of it.

There’s a glow coming from around its neck, bright and solid. It feels like magic. Old magic.

Rose raises a slow, shaking hand, and feels stingingly cold metal.

It’s a collar. A metal rope twisted into a collar.

Immediately, as she brushes with her senses, she knows it’s a cursed collar. It’s a binding spell given physical form, and a viciously brutal and powerful one at that. It thrums with energy now that she’s examining it, and the deeper she looks, the more… familiar, it seems.

It feels like the coldest depths, the darkest trenches. The furthest ring.

Someone with a connection to the eldest gods like Rose’s has made this, and they made it to keep whoever this wolf is under their control. It’s sickening, the longer she prods at the spell. It feels like a curse made from the bitterest hate, meant to harm and hurt as much as possible.

Rose’s fingers are numb as she touches the collar again. The wolf holding her to the ground keeps snarling, but it’s drifting into desperate whines now.

Rose feels that the collar is biting into the wolf’s neck, strangling it. The curse was made with an expiry date from the looks of it, and the creature above her is fast approaching it.

It’s asking for her help. It knows what she is, maybe can sense her connection to the furthest ring, and is asking for her help to save its life.

Very likely, it could kill Rose the second she releases it from binding. And if she doesn’t try to free it, it very well may kill her for that refusal. There’s no way out, and Dave is miles away. There’s no help that will find her in time.

Rose feels along the collar, and finds a metal knot in it. It’s the heart of the curse, and she knows she can break it. Unravel it. Like attracts like, and her connection to the furthest ring is a rare and dangerous advantage few have.

This is something she can accomplish.

Rose brings her other hand up to the collar, losing all feeling in that hand as well as she does, and she unfurls the thorns inside her skin.

It’s black, the stains that rise up onto her pale arms. Bleeding across her body like ink and turning it pitch. It’s a sign of the destructive power both from the spell she still holds, and the remnants of an elder god’s influence on her. It’s taken years to have this control, with many destroyed spell circles and channeling tools along the way, and it very possibly might’ve been all leading to this moment where the damnable devil powers might save her life.

Rose plunges all her strength and equally cursed powers into the knot, and set to trying to tear it to pieces.

She’s unprepared for how strong it really is, shoving back against her and refusing to give way. The wolf screams as they’re both attacked by the spell’s defenses, and Rose perseveres only because of her sheer stubbornness about dying today.

The spell is so deep, so intricate- it’s nearly a decade old and wound around its host like a snarled yarn ball- Rose has trouble finding its true center. It feels like it goes on forever, and she can’t find a beginning or end to it.

The wolf’s claws are prickling into her shoulder, and Rose’s strength is waning under the strain of fighting the spell. Her vision swims, and the numbness of the cold spreads further up her arms. The wolf is howling, crying, and it won’t stop.

A rush of strength floods through her core suddenly and Rose is bolstered back to awareness.

Dave’s half of their soul burns bright and fierce despite the distance between them, and he’s pouring all of his strength into her. Their connection isn’t strong enough to convey thoughts, but he knows she’s in trouble from the way her soul is flickering and straining. He’s too far to get there in time, so he clutches his chest and holds onto the kitchen counter for support as he gives everything to her.

Rose decides to give up finding the ends of the spell, and strikes at the center of the spell with all her light and dark magicks, boosted by Dave’s own.

The wolf cries out, sharp and pained-

-Rose’s hands are so cold they’re burning-

-Dave’s legs give out and he slumps onto the floor-

-and the collar breaks apart.

A swirl of magic and Rose’s shoulders are released. She gasps, the backlash of her spell hitting her immediately. She never uses her connection with the furthest ring unless she has to, because it drains her completely. Now especially, since she and her brother have just poured every ounce of their combined magick into the most difficult curse break they’ve ever done.

Rose can barely roll over, eyes dizzily following the path of the listing giant wolf. The collar lays in smoldering pieces around her, and the wolf is shaking and shuddering as it stumbles across the forest floor.

Black hair recedes, and it shrinks.

A dark skinned woman kneels on the forest floor in the wolf’s place. Very naked.

Rose manages to meet the woman’s brilliantly green eyes; ones that are so wide and human that Rose has trouble seeing the wolf that’d been there a second ago.

The woman’s expression is shock and confusion, and Rose distantly thinks that she’s quite cute that way, since her black canine ears are flopped back on top her head.

Rose’s vision blurs, and the last thing she sees is the wolf-woman.

 

 

 

She wakes again, exhausted and achy and… warm.

Rose opens her eyes slowly, and finds herself staring at the sky. Which is all wrong, because it had been late afternoon last she saw it, and now it’s… early morning?

She’s been wrapped up in something, what is that? It’s- moving, all around her.

Rose realizes, slowly, blearily, that she’s being cuddled by a giant wolf. One that is keeping her warm and treating her with utter care.

Rose, not for the first time, wonders if her life is actually one very long, very insane hallucination.

Across the forest, Dave wakes at the same time, cramped and cold on the kitchen linoleum. He claws his way up onto the counter, huffing and puffing as he finds his bearings again. His magic is back, meaning Rose no longer needs it- and he’s not in excruciating pain, so that means she’s obviously not dead. They’re not really sure what would happen if one of them died, but they’re sure it would be mind-shatteringly painful.

He shoves his skewed glasses back into place, and forces his unsteady legs to work.

He has to get to her. She doesn’t feel like she’s in danger anymore, but she was and he wasn’t there and he _needs to get to her right fucking now._

Dave ignores the coats by the door. He barely bothers with shoes. He just grabs all the corvid skulls he’s made over the last few days, a knife, and goes out to the spell circle.

He throws the corvid skulls across the wide circle- scattering the two dozen he’d made fresh last night- and then goes to grab his other box of skulls. He throws them out onto the rings as well, making the bleach white collection into an even sixty.

He slices his palm without flinching, and draws on his magic; going deep, deep down, and grabbing his most powerful sources by the fucking neck and hauling them out.

The sixty some little skulls rise off the ground, the leather and feather strings hanging as they do. The bright red painted symbols on each skull in intricate patterns light up. The light gains form, and spreads out to create a temporary body for sixty crows, magpies, and ravens. They hover in the air, flapping their wings and waiting for a command.

Dave would normally take a moment to revel in how sweet it is, the way he’s figured out to use necromancy without rotting bodies- but he’s on a mission and has no space for those thoughts.

He gives his small army a single command.

 ** _“Find her,”_** He says, and the blood on his sliced palm _burns._

They fly up into the air, and spread out across the sky. Going towards the direction Dave feels Rose in, and leading the charge to her location.

He wastes no time and goes to get the land rover.

It takes for-fucking-ever to get to where Rose is, but not as long as it should. It feels too near, because he knows she was further out of range before, and yet is now closer. He doesn’t know what happened to her, but if she was drawing all her own strength as also his then it must have been bad. Is she injured? She doesn’t feel like it. Has she been captured by fair folk? Not likely, they showed those guys the two of them weren’t to be messed with, not without serious risk of absolute fucking payback in the worst way possible-

Dave skids to a stop, and barely stops himself from flying over the handle bars of the rover.

Rose comes over the nearest hill, riding on top of a gigantic fucking wolf.

Dave is absolutely speechless, which happens very rarely.

Rose dismounts her magical beast OC looking ride, and stumbles a she does. She’s pale, and there are remnants of black ink on her hands and around her lips. The dark circles under her eyes tell Dave everything he needs to know; she always looks that way during grimdark hangovers.

His corvids- which arrived with Rose in their clamorous murder like they do- screech and circle the treeline. Some hop through the branches, risking getting lower and swooping close to their target to locate and protect. Not too close though, since the giant fucking wolf is still a thing and Dave is freaking out as much as his familiars are.

He decides to risk more than his apparently useless corvids, and meet Rose at the halfway point. Abandoning the rover and getting almost but not quite within mauling distance of the wolf.

Rose is there and alive and in his arms right that second though, and the wolf is suddenly a less pressing concern. Dave puts his face in her hair and breathes in the assurance that she’s alive and he didn’t lose her. He grips her like _he’s_ the one who nearly died- what’s the difference between her dying and him dying? Not much- and Rose’s fingers twist in his shirt as he does, equally desperate in her clinging to him.

Their soul halves light up being connected once again and it’s a physical relief. They lean away slowly, eyes scanning one another.

She’s cold, but not shaking. There are no wounds he can see at first glance, and while she looks tired she doesn’t quite look like she’s escaped nearly dying. Just very exhausted from extensive magic use.

“Dave,” She says, and there’s a wry half smile finding its way onto her face. “This is Jade.”

Dave looks up at the wolf, and finds a buck naked lady standing in its place.

Jade, looking a little sheepish and nervous, raises one clawed hand and waves.

Dave’s jaw drops open.

Rose gently closes her shocked brother’s mouth for him, and knows he’s feeling the same swirling confusion and honest to god _what the fuck_ feels she had a little while earlier.

This is going to get complicated so fast, Rose can already tell.

“I believe she’s in need of a place to stay.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

So. In short order, Dave and Rose somehow become hosts to a werewolf with amnesia in less than an hour after meeting her properly.

Jade remembers exactly two things about who she’d been before the whole wolf thing. One, her name is Jade. No last name because she can’t remember that either. Two, she was definitely cursed by someone extremely powerful and extremely vengeful. Someone Rose and Dave have probably angered by breaking Jade’s curse.

Rose and Dave exchange _looks_ while Jade devours all of their lunchmeats- without utensils and with all the savagery of a wolf, yikes- and figure this’ll go about as well as they think it will. Which is terribly.

But oh the appeal of that terribleness. Hm.

Jade licks her chops- she keeps shifting between slightly wolfish to very wolfish, and right now she is _very_ wolfish- and grins with all her canines on display. “Thanks again for the meal, I haven’t had people food in- well, since I was a people!”

She laughs like the fact that she’s been stuck as a wolf for the better part of a decade is funny.

Dave sips his coke slowly, and Rose hums into her coffee. They say nothing of Jade’s nonchalance. They also don’t say anything about the fact that Jade just won’t keep closed the bathrobe they got her into. There are flashes of nipples here and there. Perky ones.

Dave and Rose pretend that their cups or Jade’s eyes are so much more interesting, no casual mostly accidental ogling here, nope.

Wolf-women don’t like wearing bras, it seems. Or shirts. Or pants. Or much of anything, really. Jade was hard pressed to be put into just Rose’s almost too small bathrobe as it is. Which doesn’t fit her properly anyways; Jade is _built_ compared to Rose and Dave, who rely more on their magic for obvious reasons than on raw, literally feral strength. Jade is a wild haired, six foot something, buck-fanged werewolf and she is unfairly cute despite all the intimidating factors.

Rose and Dave say nothing to each other of finding Jade cute.

“…so, Jade,” Rose says, setting down her mug on the table. “What do you plan on doing, now that you’re… mostly un-cursed?” If she can call it that. The effects of being cursed into wolf form linger obviously, and Rose prodded at the remaining spellwork to see if those effects would ever disappear. Her intuition says it’s unlikely; Jade’s wolfishness is a part of her very being now.

Jade cocks her head to the side, consideration and deep thought very clear on her face. She’s so expressive, something Rose and Dave don’t do too often. It’s refreshing and interesting to watch, someone so open with their feelings.

“I don’t know??” Jade says eventually, her ears flopping down. She looks more than a little lost. “Gosh, I don’t even know what my last name is- I dunno what I’ll do at all at this point. I know how to hunt and fight and I think maybe run faster than cars, but I got pretty much nothing for how real world stuff works anymore. God, fuck- maybe I could go back to living in the woods? That wasn’t _too_ bad in the summer…”

Dave actually feels sorry for the lady at their table. Big green eyes and thick tangled hair; she’s a lost girl from the island of Neverland, and while she could probably tear their throats out before he or Rose could even blink, she’s pretty much been thrown into the middle of the ocean without even a lifejacket, and stands chance of drowning.

“You… could stick around here, like Rose suggested?” He says, sneaking a hand under the table to touch his fingers against his sister’s. “No time limit or expiry date to your stay in casa de Strilonde- we rent cheap for good deer skulls and the occasional help with groceries.”

Rose doesn’t speak up against the idea, and in fact thinks that it’s not a bad one. She’s very curious as to who cursed Jade- who, to all her senses and intuition, seems to be a genuinely good person- and wants to unravel the mystery of it all. Dave personally just kind wants to see where this goes, and definitely wants the wolf-woman to stop making literal puppy dog eyes.

Said puppy dog eyes go wide, and glitter like god damn riverbed stones.

“ _Really?”_

Dave shrugs, and Rose nods.

Jade makes a shriek of glee and bursts upwards from her chair, and nearly knocks the table over as she gets close to full wolf in her joy.

Rose already has her mug in hand as Jade does, and Dave swears as his coke meets an unfortunate end on the floor. He gives his sister a flat look, because wow not cool letting his beverage die such a tragic death. Rose sips her coffee innocently.

Jade is too big for the room, and knocks a collect of Rose’s herb jars over, as well as a pot full of ash that belongs to Dave. All of those breakable containers end up on the floor in pieces, and Jade gives them a mournfully apologetic look. Her tail is between her legs and the bathrobe is long gone. It’s too much even for the utter shamelessness of the Strider-Lalonde twins. They look away, cough for her to put on her robe, and tell Jade they’ll just clean that up later.

They’re both too distracted by the muscular physique and intriguing mystery to the wolf-woman that is Jade, to remember that they A) have a very indecent and incestuous relationship that they can reveal to no one, and B) have never spent extended time with anyone besides their parents. Also, their house is not a big one, and Jade is a big woman in a number of ways. It’s going to feel cramped probably within a day.

Their curiosity gets the better of them, as it tends to do, and they begin the process of figuring out how to be roommates with someone other than their twin.

 

 

 

Things Rose and Dave learn about Jade:

She sheds. Everywhere, every day. Even as a human, the woman has hair on every part of her body and three times as much on her head. It gets into everything, and laundry becomes a bigger hassle than it had been before.

Spontaneous wolf-outs happen as much as the shedding does, which happens to contribute to said shedding. She’s new to being- mostly- human again, and tends to slip back into wolf form without even noticing it. It’s two parts adorable, two parts frustrating. Jade leaves rips in the loveseat, the carpet, and leaves hair on both.

The amount of dead shit on the porch doubles, since Jade feeds herself on wildlife to save on food costs. The girl could eat Rose and Dave out of house and home in one sitting, and still have room for seconds. It’s not all that disconcerting to walk out onto the back porch and step in a drying blood puddle from a deer corpse- Jade has taken Dave’s deer skull comment to heart, to his endless amusement- but it’s a little annoying when Rose has bare feet or Dave his favorite fuzzy slippers.

Jade has no indoor voice- lord does she lack an indoor voice- no real sleep schedule- sleeps and wakes as she pleases- and a serious lack of need for clothing. Sometimes she wears at least a random shirt from Dave’s side of the closet and some baggy shorts he doesn’t wear, sometimes she wears a skirt of Rose’s and nothing else. Sometimes it’s just plain old nothing. Rose and Dave spend a lot of time averting their eyes and coughing; but also side eyeing Jade’s shoulders and abs and oh hello Jade’s boobs once again, always a pleasure.

But, Jade, bless her heart, is trying.

She cleans up after herself when she sheds- a losing battle, but a valiant one- and cleans the vacuum every time when she’s done. She bucks up and quits being mostly buck naked for trips into town, where she gasps and marvels at mundane things she hasn’t interacted with in years, and carries the large laundry loads easily for Rose and Dave; their blankets and linens inside for laundromat servicing. The fact that she can haul their massive laundry loads so easily is definitely not something they watch closely, nor is how her arms flex as she does. Nope, not at all.

Jade mends the rips she puts in things, and she’s not half bad at it once Rose sits down with her and instructs the finer points of sewing. The two of them spend quiet hours in the living room doing so, and its good practice for Jade to familiarize herself with human finger dexterity. If she’s careful about it, Rose will even concede to Jade wolfing-out on the living room floor and curling into a huge fluffball, while Rose keeps sewing or knitting. It’s quiet, when they do that. Peaceful and comfortable, despite how new their shared lives are.

The dead shit on the porch is put to good use. Jade gets most of the meat and guts- which gets stuck in her large teeth and makes Rose’s eye twitch a little- while bones and unwanted viscera are left to Rose and Dave. There is eventually a collection of morbid skeletal deer statues placed strategically across the nearest mountainside, and some further away, and the three of them snicker and chortle as locals begin posting evidence of spirits in the forest on their Facebooks. For some reason the statues are never in the same place twice, and for some reason there are new deer trails that make no sense to hunters. There is more snickering and chortling about that.

When it’s really required, Jade will be silent as a shadow for the duration of a spell or DJ-ing session. Because she’s so considerate, and so interestingly new, Dave tries sampling sounds from her. They end up with an interesting new collection of ambient songs involving low wolf moans, or bubbly remixes with Jade’s laughter spattered through. Jade, whoever she’d been before the curse, knew a lot about computers and programs for them; it barely takes a week for her and Dave to be at his desktop and soundboard, on nearly the same level of knowledge.

It’s not perfect, obviously. Partially because having someone so loud and exuberant around constantly can be a tad tiring, and partially because Jade might be wonderful (and attractive), but she is also an enormous cockblock.

Rose and Dave had moved away from home seven years ago to have space to themselves; a place alone where they could have whatever relationship they wanted. Now they’ve gone and invited someone into their bubble of comfortable isolation, and can’t take that back guilt-free. Or get laid.

Dave is also currently sleeping on the sofa bed, because they’re attempting to maintain the image of siblings living together, not incestuous lovers. His back is dying an agonizing death and it’s downright lonely most nights. Rose lays awake in their too big bed and feels quite similarly about the loneliness.

Jade sleeps on the porch outside whenever its favorable weather, which cuts down on some of the intrusiveness they sometimes feel about her, but it’s not enough. The only time they get to be _them_ is whenever Jade gets hit by the jitterbug, and goes off into the forest to be more wolf than human. There are hasty make outs and quickies in the shower, but not much more than that.

At least Jade seems to deem personal space a non-existent thing. Her opinion that casual touches and cuddles and hugs are an A-Okay thing helps, since it gives Rose and Dave the option of platonic sibling things. Like leaving their legs on each other’s laps, or sitting close during movies, or standing beside each other while making dinner. Little things, little touches.

They’re not enough, but the two of them did bring this situation on themselves. Both of them curse Jade’s beguiling charm of being utterly adorable; the parallel in being a deadly predator and having forgotten how a microwave works is painfully cute to their acquired and questionable tastes.

They also curse that while they’ve always been interested in simply each other, or various individuals in literature or on the TV- Rose and Dave find themselves each developing a crush on one buff, and often in the buff, werewolf woman.

The frequent sight of Jade’s (apparently less than) private regions is not helping. At all.

It is, to say the least, killing them both with guilt.

 

 

 

Rose knits twelve scarves and hats out of sheer shame for her crush. Dave makes fifteen different remixes he hates and deletes them all. They avoid anything deeper than small talk with one another, and pace each other’s paths in their increasingly too small feeling home. There are so many knitted items lying around now, Rose has to buy more yarn to keep going with her guilt crafting. Dave hasn’t produced a single mix he likes in weeks, and he spends hours staring at the ceiling without saying a word as music blasts in his ears. The situation is getting dire.

Jade notices, it’s hard not to, and speaks about it at one of their dinners.

“Soooo… I’m really starting to get some vibes off of you two, and I’m kinda thinking… you should sit down and talk about them?” She says slowly, watching them both. “I mean, is it because of me? Because if it is you guys should tell me-”

_“No-” “-course not.”_

Jade gives them a disbelieving look. Her plate of food is barely touched, and it’s a further sign of her worry about them that she hasn’t inhaled her bacon yet.

Rose and Dave’s plates are similar. Most of the food is still there, being pushed around forlornly.

Rose sighs, and sits back in her chair. She rubs her eyes. “No, Jade, it’s not because of you. We’re just…”

“Being emotionally constipated assholes,” Dave supplies.

“Yes. That.”

Neither of them wants to admit it, but the link between their soul halves has been fluctuating for weeks. They’re both convinced that it’s each their own fault, and have been further beating themselves up for having their interest swayed to someone new. Jade’s suggestion that they talk is a good one, but not an appealing one. If the truth comes out, and their twin reacts badly…

Neither Rose nor Dave wants this to ruin what they have. A part of them knows that the other would never leave them, but a larger part is scared their wandering attraction might put a wedge in place between them.

They’ve never been separated, not even emotionally. They’re not sure if they could stand that isolation from each other.

Jade pushes her bacon around with her fork- something she’s begun using regularly again- and continues to give them a concerned/confused expression. “Look, you guys are great, letting me stay here and live scot-free-”

“You pay in blood money,” Dave quips.

“-but I can’t stand the tension!” Jade finishes exasperatedly, not even giggling at Dave’s straight-faced joke. “You two have this- _thing_ going on between you, and I’m sorry, it’s making me really uncomfortable. So, I’ve decided I’m gonna go live in the mountains for a few days and give you space to work it out, okay?”

Rose and Dave don’t look at each other. They’re busy breaking out into subtle sweats.

Jade huffs, and shoves an enormous amount of bacon into her mouth. Chewing with a frustrated look on her face. Rose and Dave feel chastised, having driven Jade to confronting them directly about their increasingly avoidant behaviors.

After dinner, and after discretely and guiltily watching Jade chuck the shorts and tank top she’d been wearing to the ground, bounding off into the woods on all fours- they are left completely and truly alone for the first time in a month and a half.

They turn to look at one another. Dave, leaning casually on the doorframe. Rose, artfully poised against the porch railing.

“So,” Dave says.

“Wanna fuck?” Rose asks.

Dave blinks behind his shades, and a red flush tinges his ears.

“Fuck yes.”

Their clothes go the same way Jade’s did.

Some hours later, the two of them sprawled on their once and now again shared bed, they breathe side by side without barriers for the first time in what feels like forever. Their halves of soul are vibrantly connected once again, and it’s like a weight’s been lifted off their chests.

It’s reassuring, to know that despite watching Jade with vested interest, there’s still this, and there’s no way they could ever give it up. No way they would ever want to.

“So,” Rose says softly.

“IhaveacrushonJade,” Dave blurts before she can make him say it. “Oh my god I’m so sorry.”

Rose blinks at the ceiling, and turns onto her side to stare incredulously at her brother. Dave looks back at her with exposed eyes and exposed nervousness.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rose asks.

Dave nods slowly, and looks pallid.

Rose swears once, rolls all the way over and onto Dave’s chest, and stares down at him with an utterly annoyed expression.

“If you have a crush on Jade, and _I_ have a crush on Jade- then what the hell have we been doing this whole time?”

Dave opens his mouth, closes it, and grimaces.

“Fuck dammnit, twinsies again.”

Rose puts her face into Dave’s neck and groans loudly. Dave puts a hand over his eyes and makes the same sound of despair.

A month and some weeks spent agonizing and feeling like pieces of shit- and they could have been sharing how great they think Jade’s butt is this entire time.

This whole thing has just been plain stupid. Goes to show just how great the Strilonde communication abilities are, especially when they’re overthinking things.

By the time Jade returns- muddy on all four of her limbs and stomach, hair a mess nearly beyond taming, and a proudly toothy smile in place- they have a vague plan of action. Jade preens and smugly points out how much less stifling the house is now that they’ve solved their issues; she doesn’t ask what said issue was though, which is a bit of a blessing. Rose and Dave take the ribbing with good humor- how could they not, she’s Jade after all- and begin to enact their plan.

They both want the chance to bone Jade. They don’t actually know if she returns that interest to either of them. Plan of action: see just what gets Jade’s tail a waggin’, and which tail she’ll consider chasing.

They’ve thoroughly talked out the arrangement this could bring to be. They want each other to be happy, and they know that while their relationship is good as is… Jade is someone that draws both of their attentions. They both want to try being with her, even if the relationship may go nowhere at all in the end.

They promise as well that no matter what happens they’re still first to one another; still the person they care for most and wouldn’t put below anyone else. Even if one of them manages to snag their houseguest as a new beau, they won’t forget who is their literal other half.

With that pact made, and the game afoot, the effort to woo Jade begins.

 

 

 _Let’s go for a hike,_ Dave had foolishly suggested. He is the biggest fucking idiot alive.

He clings for dear life as Jade the Wonder Wolf bounds through the trees, churning up leaves as she does. He’s holding onto her neck scruff and feeling the remains of the scars the collar left on her- mostly focused on trying to not go flying off and die rather than the softness of her fur or the thickness of the scars. They show on her human form too, but aren’t quite so large. Feeling them so clearly like this is a little bizarre, kind of saddening.

Dave’s head is a bit full of shrieking and regret at the moment, so that bundle of pity feelings is shunted to the side for later.

 _“-fuck fuck fuck fuck- Jade if you drop me- nO DAMMNIT-”_ Jade leaps across a wide ravine and keeps running, the landing jostling Dave’s intimates and sense of balance both. This was the shittiest idea he ever had, why does he let himself talk himself into these things.

But, Jade is whooping and howling as they run, so maybe mission accomplished. Bond with the hot wolf-lady and get further on her good side, possibly wander into make out territory. It almost makes the sensation of nearly dying every couple hundred feet worth it.

His mouth has hair in it, he’s terrified he’ll fall- or worse, lose his glasses- and Jade is a four legged powerhouse of muscle moving right between his legs and Dave is only (mostly) human. He’s past teenagehood, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. Hormones, hoo boy.

They skid to a stop in the middle of a huge clearing way up the mountainside, and Dave is allowed to totally smoothly dismount and lie the fuck down on the grass. Sweet, sweet grass. His best friend besides dead birds.

Jade’s huffing wolf laughter changes into snorts and giggles, and then there’s a thump beside Dave as she lies on the ground. Jade is very high levels of naked and barely furry at this moment, and Dave finds oh so interesting clouds to look at instead until his self-control and breath returns.

“Snrk, you’re so dramatic, Dave,” Jade teases mercilessly. “I was barely going ninety miles per hour there!”

“Jade, my shitty car barely hits that; don’t you dare talk to me about being dramatic over your rampant need for speed.”

“Phhbt, you’re just jealous because you can barely run for more than two minutes, noodleman.”

Dave is offended. Truly offended.

“You take that back. Not everyone is blessed with the ability to be naturally beefy. And I’ll have you know, I’m svelte, not noodly.”

Jade cracks up, and Dave counts that as a total win. Until it’s a little spoiled by his cheeks starting their own mini bonfires on his face, as Jade’s exposed tits meet his exposed arm flesh and god no Jade we talked about this no hugs while naked holy fuck-

Jade plants a sloppy kiss right on Dave’s cheek, and giggles in his ear as he flails. He came out here to woo her with his expertise of where all the good hiking spots are, and instead he got taken for a joyride and feels like a school girl getting her first kiss on the dancefloor at junior prom. He’s supposed to be smooth, dammnit. Not be swept off guard and off his feet repeatedly by a girl who _just as bad_ as his sister is about knocking him off-balance.

He has terrible taste in women. Absolutely terrible taste.

(No he doesn’t, they’re both fucking amazing.)

“Aw Dave, you’re fucking adorable, you know that, right?”

“Shut up, I’m manly as hell. Except maybe next to you, Werewoof McGee. You emasculate us all so thoroughly I think there’s been a drop in male births in town.”

He gets another kiss for that quip- _score_ \- but it turns into a lick midway and whoops wolf Jade is back and Dave is denied further familiarity with her boobs. Oh well.

He’s a mess of twigs and scrapes and smells like pine needles when they get home. There’s sap in his hair. A squirrel tried to maul him at one point. Riding a wolf- nice innuendo- is only enjoyable until the position starts hurting your thighs.

But, Jade is grinning and clearly had a blast and is still naked so hey, maybe the sap and leg aches aren’t so bad after all.

 

 

 

The faces the women in the salon make are possibly the funniest thing Rose has ever witnessed, seeing them try and fail to figure out what to think of Jade in their business parlor.

Her ears are forced into human shape today, and the body hair Jade is covered with is nearly human. Her big green eyes follow every movement in the salon, and she just looks utterly pleased with what’s happening to her nails.

Rose smirks to herself. The fact that Jade continues to have near claws even in full human form is an attractive detail to her, and a confusing and mildly horrifying one to the staff painting said claws.

Jade’s chatter ebbs and flows, the topic jumping around as she catches new sights and smells from the people around them. She’s adorable to Rose, a little unnerving to the ordinary humans around them, and it makes the date just perfect.

Jade’s claws are lime green at the end of the experience, despite the grimaces of the woman who painted them. Rose’s are deep lavender, and she’d enjoyed watching her own manicurist glance nervously at Jade now and then.

Dress shopping is next on the list, because it’s the one clothing type Jade will put on and not shuck off within the hour. Not that Rose is complaining about the shucking of clothes- it’s just that window shopping can only be so fulfilling.

“-and last night I solved an algorithm formula I wouldn’t have known one end from the other just last week!” Jade finishes brightly, hints of fangs in her smile. She turns that smile on Rose, and links their arms at the elbow. “I think, if the rate I’m recovering memories keeps up, I might remember who cursed away all my memories in the first place. Plus! I’d like to know who I actually am, and not just a bunch of science and math and computer stuff. It’s all very neat, trust me, but really- is it that much to ask to get my last name back?”

“We could try another clarity spell, if you’d like,” Rose suggests as they mosey down the street. There’s only one boutique in town, and Rose refuses to let Jade drag them into the Walmart. She might be fiercely attracted and affection towards the woman, but there are _limits._

“Hmmm… maybe? The last ones didn’t work though,” Jade sighs, and bites her lip with those large front fangs of hers. “Blurgh, it’s not fair that my curse repels outside magic so well. What did past me even _do_ to warrant all this?? I was like fifteen or something!”

Rose pats Jade’s arm. “There, there. I’m sure you were just as much a darling then as you are now, and whoever has wrought such havoc on your life had no right to do so.”

“Aw, you’re sweet. Thanks,” Jade says, a bashful duck to her chin. “Sometimes I really wonder who I used to be. That and what the fresh fuck I did to get turned into a _werewolf.”_

They pass by two local boys as she says that; the preteens looking at Jade with intrigued and curious expressions. Rose gives them a black lipped smile as they go, and the preteens exchange their usual _oh boy, the lady from that cabin outside town_ look. Does she take pleasure in being the equivalent to a local cryptid legend? Yes, yes she does.

“You make a cute one, at least,” Rose says truthfully. She’s always been a cat person, but she may just have seen the light of canine leaning preferences.

“ _Awwww…”_

Rose makes a falsely surprised gasp as Jade pecks her on the cheek, and flutters her eyelashes at the much taller woman.

“Why Jade, I never. Such public displays of affection? What _ever_ will the townsmen think?”

Jade is giggling freely, and her wolf ears pop into existence as she does. Adorable. “That you’re totally cute enough to deserve the public affections, of course!”

Rose smiles, and her heart softly flutters at how badly this girl has her wrapped around her finger.

They arrive at the shop they’re aiming to purchase from, and Jade somehow finds a long dress that has multiple pockets to it. It only takes an hour back home before it’s got dirt smudges around the hem and unmentionable things from outside and inside the house in those pockets. Jade has a sunhat over her head, and convinces Rose that it’s a _great day_ for gardening.

Dave leaves them be, because this is Rose’s chance at Jade, not his. Also apparently her chance at learning how to garden things besides basic herbs. She has mud on her knees and hands almost immediately. Sweat on her brow soon after. Rose is not a gardening sort of individual.

Only Jade’s laughter and unfair attractiveness make the experience bearable.

 

 

 

Things come to a head, eventually, after they play the wooing Jade game for roughly four weeks.

She is thoroughly their friend, a confidant (to an extent) of their secrets, and well settled into the Strilonde household. She is also still very much a wild thing in human form, and has an impulsive streak when she gets excited. Or emotional. Or deeply distressed.

Some of Jade’s memories come back one night, and it’s a little like dropping a firecracker into the equation.

She wakes both Dave and Rose with a start- the three of them having fallen asleep in the living room watching movies- halfway between wolf and human and _howling._ It takes nearly a full ten minutes to get her calm enough to talk, and even then her voice strains with snarls and growls.

She tells them with stuttered sentences- part fear, part fury- about a witch. Like them, but older, stronger, crueler. One that Jade met as a young woman, because- because-

Because someone she’d known- her- grandfather?- had shot the witch’s familiar. A monster, a sea monster at that, had been terrorizing a coastal town. Jade and her grandfather had been scientists (Jade a budding one, her grandfather an established one) with a hobby of casual cryptozoology. They’d picked up the rumors with interest. It explains why Jade has accepted not just being a werewolf, but Rose and Dave’s magic as well so easily. She already knew about the world she’s now a part of.

It was self-defence, she tells them. Jade and her grandfather’s boat had been attacked like so many other ones had, and in the process of trying to not die- her grandfather had been forced to use lethal force.

“She was-” Jade shudders, her voice dropping another octave and patches of fur appearing down her back. “She wasn’t like you guys, she was this- this _thing_. I- I remember her rising out of the ocean, and-” Jade puts a hand on her forehead, eyes distant. “-she said something about my grandpa having to lose things that were precious to him as well, and- fuck. She cursed me. That’s. That’s where it cuts off. But… I’m pretty sure my grandpa is dead.”

Thick droplets trickle out of her eyes as she whispers the last part, and Dave and Rose’s hands find Jade’s. She starts crying harder, and the woman in front of them crumples like she’s a scared fifteen year old girl all over again.

Jade’s shoulders shake as a full body sob breaks out of her throat, and she lunges for the nearest person- Rose- to tug her into an abrupt kiss.

The kiss breaks immediately, Jade is still crying and nearing incoherent, and then Dave is pulled into a surprise kiss with equal force. Then released right away, looking about as caught off guard as Rose does.

Dave and Rose know how to handle surprise kisses- experience is helpful- but they do not however know how to handle a sobbing werewolf who is reliving her grief, ten years too late to do anything about it.

They exchange only mildly panicking expressions, and decide to wing it.

Jade is bigger than them both, but she’s so small like this. Sorrowful and wracked with new memories she’d forgotten. They end up in a pile on the pullout couch, Jade between them as she comes down from her semi-hysteria. Cuddles are a good way to help people feel better, right? That’s what they’re praying, at least.

Jade finishes sniffling and blowing her nose on tissues Rose brought her a while later, lying curled up between Rose and Dave like the picture of a despaired puppy. Rose’s fingers run through Jade’s hair and rub her wolf ears, and Dave’s rub circles across the werewolf’s broad back. Together, they’re fairly certain they’re getting something right, since Jade finally stops sobbing and calms completely.

A wet sniffle, and Jade says suddenly, “By the way, I kind of really like both of you guys? A lot. Um. Sorry for the sudden kissing, I was… a little desperate,” She shifts and stares at them both, looking unsure of herself. “Sudden memory return will do that to you, I guess. Heh. Um.” She bites her lip. “I just… you’re really great, and you’ve done a lot for me, and you’re both super cute, and… ugh, I’m making this weird. I really did try to pick one of you guys, but you’re just… _uuuugh_ , _equally_ cute. It’s not fair. Please don’t kick me out for it.”

Rose’s lips purse and she glances at Dave, whose lips are an unreadable line.

_Should we try?_

_Fuck if I know._

They seem to be repeating themselves. Well, it worked out alright the last time they tried something so daring…

“…it’s fine, Jade. We won’t be kicking you out over this. Not since we happen to have similar affections,” Rose says gently, brushing a lock of black hair out of Jade’s face. “In case you hadn’t noticed out flagrant flirting, the feelings are mutual.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yep,” Dave says solemnly, nudging her shoulder with his elbow. “You got us but good, Jade. We can’t get enough of your charms and mad good looks.”

Jade giggles hoarsely and squirms. “But. If you both like me- and I like both of you- are you guys really alright with that? Sharing, I mean.” Her cheeks aren’t visible enough in the lowlight to gauge the color of, but Dave and Rose bet they’re redder than normal. “I can’t remember ever being with anyone before, let alone two people, or two… siblings. That’s not a normal thing, right?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” Rose says, choosing her words carefully. “But for us… I suppose it might be.”

Jade blinks at her. “What?”

Rose casts a look at Dave, who looks as nervous as she feels. This is it, the big leap of faith and prayer.

“We, uh,” Dave says awkwardly, slowly taking the hand Rose is offering him. “We’re kind of. You know. Together already. Me and Rose.”

Jade’s eyes go wide, and her ears point alertly.

Rose and Dave’s grip on each other is strong, and they pretend they don’t feel the slight tremor to each other’s hands.

“You. You’re what?”

“Incestuous, Jade,” Rose says quietly. “The word you’re looking for is incestuous.”

Dave remains silent, and just prays to the list of gods he tributes. Please let this go well. He doesn’t want to lose this amazing wild girl and he knows Rose doesn’t either. Please let her be okay with this, with them. _Please._

Rose is praying similarly, and tightens her grip on Dave’s hand.

Jade looks between them rapidly, still flat on her back on the pullout bed, and glancing the most at their joined hands. She looks confused, and maybe a little mystified.

“Really?” She asks again, staring at their hands.

Rose hesitates, and then nods. Dave shrugs, mute and a little terrified. They both are.

Jade’s mouth makes a little _o,_ and she looks up at them with a sort of wonder.

“So you’d be okay if we _all_ shared, then?” She asks, questioning without judgement. “The three of us with the three of us?”

Hope sparks in Rose and Dave.

“Yes.”

“Totally.”

“Wow,” Jade whispers, wide eyes matching her slowly widening smile. “Okay. Wow. Please? I’d really like that.”

Faintly disbelieving she’s getting so lucky again- Rose nods once, then again, and smiles with true hope. “I’d really like that too, Jade. I think myself and Dave both would.”

“Unanimous agreement over here,” Dave says, and he sounds a little breathless as he does.

Jade laughs and it’s a beautiful sound to hear.

Her cheeks are still wet from tear tracks, and taste like salt, but she’s still Jade in all her untamed energy and enthusiasm, and Rose and Dave are fairly certain they’ve fallen in love with her. Jade giggles and gasps, and kisses them back. She says in a rush, _“I think I love you guys,”_ and it makes Rose and Dave’s hearts do odd clenching motions.

The misery of Jade’s recovered memories is set aside for the night. There are more loving things to do, chaste and less than chaste kisses to exchange. A bed to fill with three bodies that don’t have many barriers left between them.

The king size bed is no longer an unwarranted luxury after that, it is a necessity. Jade is a heavy sleeper, a tall woman as well, and there’s plenty of room for her sprawling limbs and hair length. She twitches in her sleep, mumbles and huffs, and she fits right into the mold with Dave and Rose.

Waking up to not just one, but _two_ affectionate individuals in their bed is an excellent change to things. Wholly welcome to everyone involved.

Jade stops wearing shirts around the house, to which no one complains about. Dave and Rose don’t have to hide their affections any longer, and Jade watches them with interested eyes. No one’s attention is competed for anymore, since it’s all quite plain and mutual.

Rose and Dave count themselves so lucky, so very lucky, that they fell in love a second time with someone who accepts them. Jade is wild and fierce and absolutely stunning, and she thinks what they have is special and wonderful. She wants to be a part of it, and she fits like she’s always been there.

They’re all literal beings of magic, but sometimes there’s magic in their lives that is just something else.

Fate works so strangely, and Rose sometimes wonders just how much Aradia knew of theirs. She doesn’t dwell too much though, since there’s now two people vying to drag her into shenanigans, and the future is something she’d rather think about than the past.

 

 

 

It’s perfect, the day to day life in their house. Three people in one house, disasters and triumphs in magic between all of them, and a whole forest to themselves without prying eyes. It’s a second honeymoon for Dave and Rose, and they enjoy the period its second time around.

They have long afternoons spent resting against Jade’s flank as she sleeps on the carpet or the porch. Nights spent in the depths of the forest practicing magic or just letting Jade take them where she pleases on her back. Mornings spent curled around each other in bed and unwilling to move from that position.

It’s perfect, it’s everything they could have wanted, until-

-Jade wakes with the images and memories of her old self flooding through her mind, and a name falling off her tongue she can’t believe she forgot the meaning of.

Jade as bolts up rigidly in the bed, it’s enough of a rattle to the frame that it rouses Dave and Rose.

“Jade?” Rose asks blearily, rubbing her eye. “Jade, what is it?”

“New memory?” Dave asks, barely conscious but getting there with effort. “You okay?”

“John,” Jade all but whispers.

“Who?” Rose questions, sitting up.

 _“John,”_ Jade says louder. “John- John, oh my god- _John.”_

Dave frowns, hearing distress in Jade’s voice. “Jade, hon, the fuck is John?”

Jade doesn’t answer; she just throws off the covers and vaults from bed. Rose and Dave startle, and rush to follow with sleep clumsy legs.

Jade tears through the house, out the back door, and they catch up with her just as she screams into the night air, _“JOHN! JOHN, I’M HERE!”_

“Jade, Jade- who is John?” Rose asks, ignoring the cold ground beneath her bare feet as they approach their girlfriend.

 _“My brother,”_ Jade sobs, tears streaking her face and sorrow cracking her voice. “My brother- I _forgot my own brother-_ oh god- _JOHN, PLEASE-”_

“Shh, shhhh, Jade, hey, calm down,” Dave tries to put a hand on her shoulder, but has to remove it as Jade shoves him away.

Rose and Dave falter, they’re not good with strong emotional outburst, let alone full meltdowns like this- and they can’t do anything useful as Jade sobs and howls.

Black fur covers her and she grows in size, her howls become proper ones as she becomes a miserable giant wolf, crying out for a sibling she didn’t even know she had.

Rose’s heart breaks and Dave’s does as well. They know how much a sibling can mean, even if Jade’s relationship with John wasn’t the same. This is so much worse than when she remembered losing her grandpa; this is like watching Jade’s heart bleed out.

Jade’s wild howls slow, and quiet until it’s just huffy sobbing. She sinks to the ground, and that’s when Rose and Dave can approach her again. Putting their hands on her flank and head; combing Jade’s fur and saying meaningless comforts as they calm her down. Jade’s large green eyes are luminous and wet, the fur around her muzzle soaked in tears.

It’s late, past midnight, and they kneel on the ground outside their home as Jade cries herself out. Waiting for this fresh wave of grief to pass enough she can change back to her more vulnerable human form.

Rose lays her head on Jade’s side, and tangles her fingers in the thick fur. Jade huffs and cries, and Rose wishes the effort to go back in time wouldn’t kill herself and Dave, and likely destroy their future in the process. She can’t take this pain away from Jade, and she’ll have to watch her girlfriend suffer through it.

A breeze flutters her hair, and Rose for a moment thinks there’s a voice in it.

Jade’s ears perk up, and she lifts her enormous head off the ground. Dave stops massaging her neck as she does, and looks up at the starlit sky.

“What is it, girl? Timmy in the well again?”

Jade’s tail whips around to smack Dave’s side, and she gets to her feet. Rose loses her support as Jade does, and is forced to stand as well.

Jade’s ears turn this way and that, and Rose doesn’t know _what_ her werewolf girlfriend could possibly be so focused on all of a sudden-

-until a voice reaches her own ears.

_You said my name!_

Jade barks at the wind that’s steadily getting stronger around them.

_That’s me! I’m John!! You said my name!_

Dave turns in circles, trying to find the source of the voice, and gets a face full of strong wind for it. There are leaves in it. They smack him in the eyes and nose and one tries to enter his mouth. Phhbt.

 _Jade! Jade, you remembered me!_ Exclaims the wind. And it is definitely the wind speaking, since Rose and Dave’s senses start picking up a presence surrounding them on all sides. One that’s laughing free and loud in their ears.

Jade yips and barks and starts taking leaps into the air. John- who is apparently the _wind-_ blusters the ground around them to lift leaves and papers stuck in their garden into the air, flinging it all into a tornado that Jade hops and jumps around in.

Rose’s hair flies in a tangle as the two cursed sibling reunite, and Dave wishes he had a pair of goggles to keep the dust out of his eyes.

 _Jade!! Jade!!!_ John the wind spirit keeps chanting.

Jade throws back her head and howls in response.

Rose and Dave exchange eye contact.

Well, at least they won’t have to make up a spare bed for John.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

Despite not being able to take up physical space, John ends up ‘moving in’ with his sister. On the one hand, no shedding, no need to buy extra food, and no extra beds to set up. On the other… John is a prankster, and still suffering from the full strength of his curse. Which, in short, means he tends to miss when a prank is welcome and when it is not, and in general misses social cues.

Rose’s hair is never allowed to remain neat and tidy. Dave knows what leaves and dust taste like, now. Having a blustering gale sweep carelessly in through an open window causes about as much havoc as one would expect, and they’ve nearly set their house on fire three times as much as they usually do because of John’s intrusions.

The wind spirit is lackadaisical and playful pretty much 24/7. Laughter follows his ambient presence wherever he goes, and John never seems to let his mood drop below total enthusiasm. It’s a little overwhelming, since Rose and Dave are the type to be subdued with their happy emotions.

At least Jade’s happy. Their girlfriend’s happiness is important to them, and watching the wolf-woman race the wind across the mountain is a good sight. Though papers and curtains and their hair gets blown into disaster every time John’s presence enters their home, Jade’s chance to have her brother back, however immaterial he may be, is more important than Rose and Dave’s discomfort.

This doesn’t mean their patience isn’t tried. They are, after all, introverts who like their personal space, and their houseguests are touchy-feely extraverts. It’s been… an adjustment.

And they’re a little jealous, truthfully speaking. Jade’s attention centers on her brother most days now, and Rose and Dave find themselves feeling a little possessive. Yes, John is her long lost twin brother- odd, another set of twins- but Jade is _their_ _girlfriend._ They don’t get nearly as much time with her anymore, thanks to John’s invisible antics drawing her out into the forest so often.

But, of course, the two of them being the two of them- they say nothing to Jade, and sit on their emotions like the stubbornly repressed individuals they are.

Jade has most of her memories back now, which is helping her settle a bit more into her human skin- but there’s still a lot missing about John’s presence in their old lives. A stubborn cling of amnesia that won’t let go, even after Rose’s umpteenth try with a useless clarity spell. But, she now has access to the memory of the day she and John were cursed. It’s helpful to finishing the puzzle.

The spell essentially boiled down to the crazy sea witch wanting their grandfather to suffer like she was. Lose something or someone he loved above almost everything else. For her, it was the giant white sea monster- which Jade and John recount having resembled a mermaid goat-thing- and for their grandfather is was his twin grandkids.

To make the loss even more excruciating, she’d cursed them into forms that _no one_ could ever love. The wind, which slips through one’s fingers and never remains in one place for more than a short while- and a beast, too wild and fearsome for anyone to approach safely, lest they lose limb and life.

On a level, Rose is faintly impressed. To pull off such a powerful and thorough curse on the fly is something she can only dream of doing at the moment. The witch who’d cursed Jade and John is no doubt leagues more powerful than she and Dave are.

Dave, personally speaking, is kind of unsettled because he hasn’t forgotten Jade mentioning that this ultra-powerful mega witch-bitch would be _pissed_ about them breaking the curse. Hearing just how terrifyingly powerful she really is… well, terrifying.

It’s been a few months since they broke Jade’s curse. Now they have John, and while Jade hasn’t asked aloud just yet… Rose and Dave both know she wants them to break John’s as well.

Doing so will, without doubt, finally bring retribution on them. The fae and spirits in the mountains surrounding them know better than to cross their local witch twins- and they’re still young, still refining their abilities. They’ve gone and crossed a witch much stronger and older than themselves, and now they’re probably going to have to do it a second time.

It’s suicidal, likely speaking.

It’s also damn close to an obligation.

Jade wants her brother back, and how could they refuse to give that part of her past back to her? They love her- they do, it’s only been a few months but they _love_ her- and saying no would hurt them as much as it would hurt Jade.

Rose and Dave spend a lot of time leaning on the railing of their porch, observing their girlfriend interact with a brother she can’t touch. Thinking, brooding. The typical moods of troubled Strilondes.

“We’ll likely get us all killed,” Rose comments idly, as they plan their future moves. Her intuition is turned up to its full power; her mind’s eye open to all the possibilities this may lead them towards.

There’s so much chance they’ll all just die, it’s hard to find a path in her mind that doesn’t feel doomed.

Dave shrugs, watching Jade talk at the air around her with a blinding smile. It’s sometimes hard to look at that smile, how joyful someone with such shitty luck can be. He kind of wonders if John would smile the same way.

“Not like we don’t do other shit that’s just as likely to,” Dave points out.

“There’s a difference between flirting with danger, dear brother, and ripping its metaphorical pearls and dress off.”

“Better make sure we buy it a good dinner before that, then.”

“…you seem very eager, Dave. This won’t be a light undertaking, not when we know the gravity of our choices. Why so ready to cross a devil?”

Jade’s laughter floats across the lawn, and both Dave and Rose hear it.

Dave watches Jade, and feels his heart do that uncomfortable clench thing it always does. “Come on, Rose. For her? We’d do fucking anything.”

Jade spots them, and gives a wave and a flash of canines.

Rose sighs, and waves back; her heart completely enamored. “Yes, I suppose we would. How troublesome.”

They both know she doesn’t mean that statement.

 

 

 

Falling in love is a deeply annoying thing. First their twin, and then a werewolf girl. Neither of them have terribly smart taste, obviously speaking.

Love is what drives both Rose and Dave to study the finer details of John’s curse, and begin formulating a plan to break it. Breaking Jade’s had been a spur of the moment potential disaster; they’d rather this time around is a little more controlled and involved less near death feeling situations.

(Jade apologized multiple times afterwards for her behavior. She’d been in so much pain, enough that she could barely think beyond trying to survive. Smelling Rose in the mountain range she’d been blindly wandering had been the last straw on her fragile self-restraint. Rose just smelled so much like the witch, because of the furthest ring taint in her, and Jade had been out of it enough to mistake her for the sea witch.

Jade was forgiven for every time she apologized. She hadn’t hurt Rose besides a bit of bruising, and she’s obviously not someone they’re holding grudges against anymore.)

John isn’t much help. His cursed state seems to affect his thoughts, like Jade’s did, and he can scarcely focus on anything seriously for more than a few seconds. Getting him to pool his essence in one place longer than a minute is a nightmare; he’s just so flighty and distracted by things he catches notice of. It’s frustrating, especially after the fifth time Rose and Dave are trying to examine his curse more closely, and John disappears into a passing storm system for a romp with lightning.

“He was always a little like this, I think,” Jade says, patting their shoulders sympathetically as Rose and Dave simmer discretely. “I remember some stuff about us being kids, and he was such a dumbass sometimes. Couldn’t pay attention to anything serious for more than a little bit.” She sighs, and shakes her head. “John’s kind of dense when dealing with big emotions, honestly. And the wind-endorphin-drug-thing isn’t helping.”

Rose and Dave mutter agreements, and let Jade’s strong hands massage out their annoyance.

It takes much longer to figure out how to help John than it did Jade; mostly because Jade was at least corporeal. John is literal air, and is about as wily to capture. To counteract that part of his curse, Rose and Dave eventually decide to do the obvious thing and just try the opposite on John.

Which is binding him into a single form, kind of like how Jade had been. Minus the biting time limit collar, of course. Then they might be able to undermine the curse enough to break it, setting John free to exist in… whatever state he may end up in.

There’s a possibility John may die in the process, and another possibility that he may end up perfectly fine. Rose and Dave are aiming for _‘perfectly fine’_.

 _Is this really going to work?_ John questions, blustering around the spell circle they’re setting up. _I don’t want to do it if you’re not sure it’ll work!_

Rose sets down the last required crystal, tucking the fist-sized prism into the ground. “If it does not, I’m filing with every one of those specialty plant stores for my money back. Also setting this damn circle on fire.” She’s spent all week perfecting the ritual with Dave; spent longer attempting to configure a completely original spell with no prior knowledge of this type of binding magic. If it doesn’t work Rose will honest to god be pissed enough to set the thing ablaze, should they all survive the experience of it failing and/or backfiring on them.

She has had very little sleep lately. Its grating on her as much as having to, once again, pretend to be a mere sibling to Dave. John might be a scatter brained wind spirit, but he’s certainly not stupid. He remembers his and Jade’s old lives much more clearly than she did, and it’s allowed him to stay this collected the past decade.

Jade apparently knew sometimes who he was, and John’s status as a wind spirit seems to grant him the ability to communicate with any creature that breathes. Including his wolf sister. He told Rose and Dave in a light hearted voice that she’d been the only one he could really talk to this whole time, and it always sucked when Jade was having a bad few weeks where she only knew hunting and running…

He’d done so in passing- literally, since he’d been on the way out of their home’s ventilation- but Rose and Dave had caught sadness in that statement.

The still unclaimed twins- their last names unrecovered, even with John and Jade’s memories clearing up better all the time- are just a little sad all around, really. It’s melancholy to think too deeply on their isolation and loss.

Which is why Rose turns to their future problems instead, and Dave focuses on the present and what he can do for them now. Like carve a big-ass magic circle, more complicated than he ever uses, straight into the ground of a fresh spell site.

Dave shoos Jade out of his way as he goes, laying the white sand into the small trenches he’s carved. It falls into line perfectly, and makes the whole design just _pop_ against the dark earth. He’s halfway tempted to go back home and get a camera, since the whole set up would look just fantastic as an aesthetic photoset.

Rose probably knows what he’s thinking, pausing mid preparation like he is- (she does, she knows that look on his face)- and he’s prodded in the ribs back to finishing his sand lines.

When everything is done, Jade is sent to anxiously pace the outer reaches of the clearing, and Dave and Rose take their positions. Directly parallel from one another across the intricate spell circle; Dave on magical support, and Rose as the main conductor of the ritual. This is more her type of magic than his, and he’s fine playing battery as she does the delicate/destructive work.

Dave takes off his sunglasses- it’s mostly useless to use them this late in the evening anyways- and hooks them on his shirt. Rose smooths her bangs out of the way, and ignores the urge to bite her stained lips nervously.

They meet eyes- red to purple- and raise their hands. Rose’s needles in hers, and Dave’s empty palms splayed.

One, two- their soul halves burn as they connect their magicks.

 _God, I can’t wait to have toes again!_ John says brightly (oddly) in their ears. _You never really know how great toes are until they’re gone. And limbs in general, jeez._

Dave has to bite down on a near snicker. This guy. Jesus, what a dork.

Rose, though faintly amused by John’s fixation on toes of all things, focuses on not blowing them all to kingdom come and begins the spell.

John has been instructed to pull as much of his intangible self inside the spell circle, and let Rose grab hold of it. Whether or not he’s remembered to is a prayer Rose gives as she attempts the first step.

John’s essence is there, thank gods, and Rose winds her net around it. Chanting softly the nearly lyrical words she’s been painstakingly writing out for this specific spell.  It’s a bit of a collab with Dave, honestly, which is partially why it sounds a little like a song.

The witch’s curse fights back immediately, and Rose grits her teeth against the backlash. Her hold on John begins to slip, and it’s only because of Dave’s support that she doesn’t lose him.

Jade whines outside the circle, pacing and acting like she wants to help. Dave grunts, and shakes his head at her. Interrupting now might make it all go _boom_ pretty spectacularly.

Rose’s needles turn dark at the tips, and her lips and fingers bleed black. It’s not a full possession of grimdark power like the curse break with Jade had been, but it’s enough that her stains spread and trickle over her skin. The cold, buzzing power that enters her spellwork shifts the balance, and because they’re not actively trying to break the curse just yet, she reasserts her control over the situation.

Slipping the net of magic around John’s presence bit by bit is tricky, since they don’t want to leave his foot behind or anything like that. It’s got to be all or nothing, or there might be blood involved after all.

Rose’s forehead beads with sweat, and Dave’s does as well. They handle the grimdark power struggle together, putting their years of trial and error experience to the test.

The air pressure rises, and they feel their ear pop twice as they keep at it. The closer Rose pushes John’s self together, the harder the air gets to breathe. Wind blows the tops of the trees, and swirls in a tornado surrounding their clearing. It’s loud and whistling, and somewhere in it John’s voice is exclaiming pained sounds.

Jade howls, apparently distressed enough to go full wolf, and Rose’s net reaches the final point.

She snaps her needlewands sharply, and yanks the spell around John in one harsh pull.

The air pressure breaks, and a person appears in midair above the spell circle.

The previously long-lost brother of Jade is corporeal for the first time in a decade, and he floats above the ground without gravity. The spell that’s holding his form together glows in symbols all over his body, and his solidness fluctuates. He’s mostly see-through still, but more real than he’d been a moment ago. His blue eyes are ethereally lit, brighter than the symbols wrapped around him.

Acting before the witch’s defense spells can start a fuss again- Rose channels her destructive powers right into the center of John’s curse. The chant she’d prepared prior to the ritual is finished with one final word, and it leaves her lips as a shout.

John’s eyes go wide as a bolt of black lightning hits his chest, and the explosion of wind from him nearly knocks everyone off their feet.

Rose and Dave both feel the curse’s lock on him break, and the pressure pushing against them disappears. Both of them slowly sink to their knees, the exhaustion of breaking such a powerful curse catching up with them by the second.

John meanwhile floats gently to the ground, a hand on his chest and a look of utter wonder as he touches grass with his feet. He’s not naked like Jade had been when she was un-cursed, but he’s not exactly normal looking either. Dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, no shoes, and bizarrely enough a pair of glasses on his face.

John gasps and hops off the ground again, and his solidness fades for a split second.

Rose narrows her eyes, and is a little frustrated so much of the curse remains attached to the boy, despite all her work to destroy it with such a meticulously planned spell.

Dave is a little more distracted by the fact that John looks very much like his twin sister- which means he’s pretty cute- and that the edges of his vision are going dark. _Oh joy passing out from exhaustion here we go again, three, two-_

Dave faints before he hits one, dizzy and shutting down to replenish his magic stores.

Rose, being the one in charge of the spell and the recipient of the shared power, has a little more time than Dave to see their results.

John is only tentatively toeing the ground again, when a black and brown blur tackles him out of the air. The warning for Jade to keep out of the circle can only restrain her so long, and she snags her brother out of the air into a spinning hug. She’s shrieking with joy and sobbing through thick tears, and Rose notes that John is doing similarly in Jade’s arms.

Jade, who is very naked once again and that’s clearly not something that bothers her brother. Jade, who John is cupping the cheeks of and looking into her eyes. Jade, his sister, who he’s planting a very messy kiss right on the lips of.

Rose’s head and vision is swimming, and she’s not sure if she really saw that happen.

Jade breaks the kiss, giving John a shocked look.

“John! What the fuck!?”

John gives her a confused look in return.

“What, you forgot that stuff, too?”

“What stuff? _Kissing_ stuff??”

“…Jade, we were secret-dating for like a year before we got cursed. And jacking off in private for like, two before that.”

Jade looks so confused and edging towards offended.

_“What??”_

John is looking a little concerned now.

“So… no to the getting back together thing? Wolf-you always seemed into it when I asked.”

Jade gives him a flabbergasted gape.

 _“I was a fucking wolf, John,_ everything sounded appealing back then!”

John’s form flickers, and he goes a little see-through; his expression of joy falling.

“…oh. Sorry.”

Jade makes a frustrated growl, and shakes her brother.

“Why is everyone around here into incest?” She exclaims in an exasperated voice. “God dammnit- apparently including me and you!”

John blinks at that, darting a glance to Rose. “Uh-?”

Jade cuts him off with a teeth clacking kiss. John’s eyes go wide for a second, and then he wraps his arms around Jade’s neck and returns the kiss. He’s still floating off the ground, legs curled upwards, and Jade’s nakedness and wolf tail adds to the absurdity of the scene as they make out.

That’s the last thing Rose sees, and she’s honestly deeply offended by that fact.

 

 

 

Rose and Dave regain consciousness again hours later. Thankfully next to one another, meaning they find the person they’re reaching out instinctively towards almost immediately.

Their hands find one another, and they curl together under the blanket they’ve been tucked into. It takes a moment of just breathing together before they can think outside of just needing to know where the other is.

Then they realize they’re in their bedroom, on their bed, in the clothes they’d gone out to do the ritual in.

Dave lifts the blanket enough to see their feet, and confirms his suspicion. “I don’t think Jade quite understands outdoor shoes yet.”

Rose groans, and ignores how they’re likely leaving dirt all over the sheets. “I love our girlfriend, but my god does she not get that dirt stays _outside,_ not in the house, or the bed, or her dress pockets…” Rose blinks, and a memory of what’d happened before she passed out returns. “Oh. And Dave?”

“Hm?”

“I believe we’ll have to share Jade, now.”

“…how so. Weren’t we already?”

“We were, yes, but now there’s John.”

“…John,” Dave questions slowly.

“Yes, John,” Rose confirms. “I believe the mysterious and suddenly returning ex is always the one to lure the plucky heroine back into a relationship with him at least once per season, am I correct?”

“For most dramas, yeah, but I think they usually like to save those for the season one finales as real heartbreaker for all the little shippers out there, drums up rage and interest in the next season and oh god she’s boning her brother too, holy fuck.”

Rose pats the side of Dave’s face as he fully takes things in. “I do believe our inclade just absorbed a new member, Dave.”

“Like fuck it did, she didn’t even ask us if we wanted to add another member to your harem of fine bitches, Rose.”

Rose shrugs. She’s had a few seconds longer than Dave to take things in and is preparing to roll with it. “At least John is attractive; their family genes do seem to work for both sexes.”

Dave makes a _‘oh my god what the actual fucking fuck is happening’_ noise, and Rose pats his cheek again.

They then extricate themselves- and their still muddy shoes, thank you Jade for that- from the bedsheets, and go to find their parallel fellow twincest.

John and Jade are flopped in a tangle on the couch, Jade’s larger size granting her the cushions and John the position of lying on top of her. Two sets of wide eyes look up at Dave and Rose as they enter, and the four of them sort of stand there for a moment. Waiting for the other pair to speak.

Dave breaks the silence.

“I’m starting to think everything about our lives is doomed to be a bunch of fucking terrible romcom shenanigans.”

Jade’s partially concerned expression breaks, and she goes _pfffff_. John makes a similar sound, his kind of see-through shoulders shaking as he laughs.

Rose sighs, and winds an arm around her stressing sibling’s waist. On the bright side of things, at least the incest talk will be greatly reduced in length.

 

 

 

While Rose and Dave had been sleeping, John had refreshed Jade’s memory about their lives prior to cursing, and triggered her own like he’d been aiming to.

The gist of how their eventual incest was oddly similar to Rose’s and Dave’s- though involving more gardening, prank mishaps, and failed attempts to set up bad romcom scenarios. It was honestly a bit suspicious, how coincidental things were lining up to be.

Jade points out that Rose and Dave are twin witches who share a soul, and that she and John were cursed into inhuman forms for over a decade. When compared to those things, the both of their pairs being incestuously inclined somehow looks tame.

The world is a very big, very stupidly convoluted place. They apparently have managed to land in a particularly so portion of it.

Even though they’re still questioning the legitimacy of this ease of transition- (or Rose is, at least)- they decide to make a meal and discuss other pressing questions. Like explaining to John that Rose and Dave have been dating his sister for the past few months (and are quite thoroughly in love with her).

John turns out to already be very aware of the nature of Rose, Dave, and Jade’s relationship. He gives them all a _duh_ kind of look when they start to bring it up and their future options regarding it.

“I was literally the air around you guys; there wasn’t any way I could _not_ know!” He exclaims. “Do you know how many times I blew through and found two or more of you having sex?? Too many! This is my sister, perverts. You should have more restraint than that.”

Dave actually raises an eyebrow all the way up at that accusation.

“Dude, you’re literally sitting in Jade’s lap right this second. You have no god damn leg to stand on about keeping your mitts off her fine as fuck body.”

John huffs, and doesn’t remove himself from his perch on Jade’s knee. “I was here first, so I have seniority.”

Jade just laughs at them both, winding her arms around John’s waist and giving Dave a grin. “Aw, thanks Dave, you have a fine as fuck body, too.”

“See? She finds me prettier. Point to me.”

John sticks his tongue out, and Dave nearly does the same, but Rose elbows his ribs before he can.

“No fighting at the dinner table, boys. Eat your vegetables before you squabble.”

 _“Ow_ , fuck your pointy elbows, Lalonde. And we’re on the god damn porch, we’ll squabble all we want.”

“Yeah, Rose,” Jade defends. “Let them squabble! It’s funny and I get to steal all their bacon while they’re busy.”

“Excuse me you what now?” John asks, checking to see what’s happened to his plate. “Wha- Jade! That’s the first bacon I have in over a decade and you ate it all??”

“Don’t worry; I got Dave’s, too.”

“I let you have those, just so you know.”

“You’re just trying to bribe me into giving you extra attention.”

“Is it working?” Dave asks, waggling his eyebrows.

Jade giggles, and nudges his foot with her bare one. “Yes, it is, mister king of cling.”

Dave’s sunglasses are in place, but he visibly blinks. “Excuse me, I’m what now?”

Jade gives him an amused look. Like he’s just said something funny and a little stupid. “You’re super clingy, Dave. Super, super clingy. The king of cling.”

Every word is another stake to Dave’s heart. Cruelty, slander, all from the woman he loves. He turns to the other woman he loves, and Rose gives him a smirk.

“Dearest brother mine, you are the clingiest, neediest member of our little group and possibly in the entire world. You cannot deny fact.”

Dave’s pride is wounded. Kneecapped, even. “No Rose not you too, dammnit. I am not clingy.”

Rose pats his knee patronizingly. “You’re just lucky we find you cute.”

Dave gives her an utterly betrayed look, and Jade and John are holding each other up as they laugh.

Dave looks at the three people he’s given his blood, sweat, and tears to, and scowls.

“I’m breaking up with all of you. Jackasses.”

“Who said I was dating you?” John pipes up smarmily. “No homo, bro.”

“Your sister and my sister are in lesbians, John. It is long since too late to call no homo. All the homo, John. All of it.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever, jerk. Hey, what’re you-?” John jerks backwards into Jade’s shoulder. “Hey! No- you-you asshole we’re not even- Jade help he’s trying to-”

Dave kisses John’s cheek with the most obnoxiously wet kiss he can manage, and John makes a shrieking sound as he’s assaulted. Jade nabs Dave into a proper three-way hold, and John struggles in her muscular arms to run away. Dave keeps making passive-aggressive kiss attempts at John, while Jade throws back her head and laughs.

John turns into wind to escape the entrapment, and hovers in the air with a disgusted frown. “Assholes! God!!”

Jade puts a hand on Dave’s face and covers his shades as she tries to calm both the boys down. “Sorry, he’s like this a lot! You’ll get used to it. He’s actually really sweet and adorable once you get to know him.”

“I am no such fucking thing,” Dave defends valiantly, even as his girlfriend holds him in a lock without even breaking a sweat.

“Yes you are, dork.”

“ _No such thing.”_

John wrinkles his nose, and flips to hover upside down. His glasses nearly slip off as he does, and he catches them before they do with a grimace. “Yeah, we’ll just see about that.”

Rose neatly finishes the last of her dinner while all this takes place, and she thinks it’s better than most television programs.

 

 

 

Falling in love with Jade had been gradual and gentle. They had time to figure out how they felt about her, time for her to figure out how she felt about them, and time for their lives to slowly mesh.

John’s entrance into their lives is abrupt, and so is his addition to their poly.

Objectively, the formerly-but-still-sort-of-cursed boy is attractive, and relatively easy to get along with under civil terms. Subjectively, he’s a little overly clingy to Jade and tends to give Rose and Dave side eyes for trying to kiss their girlfriend.

Which is fair, since he’s spent the better part of recent years as an intangible wind spirit, and only had Jade to talk to the whole time (which wasn’t even all that substantial a comfort). There’s bound to be lingering effects of the nearly total isolation.

This doesn’t stop it from being mildly annoying how often John still steals Jade’s attention away.

But, for Jade’s sake, and because she gives them all a _very stern look,_ the three of them agree that they will try to get along. If something happens somewhere during that getting along, then great. If not, then Jade connection to either side of the poly will be the stabilizing influence to things. Not optimal, since Jade is still quite wild some days, and she can only remain attentive to indoor interpersonal dynamics for so long before she has to go running into the woods.

But they’re all trying best they can to make things work, which is what’s important.

John’s transition back to semi-humanity is a little harder than Jade’s. For one, Jade didn’t spent the previous decade being unable to feel or communicate. John is comfortable with interaction and touching most days, but there are ones where, like Jade, he needs some space to himself. It helps cut down on the extraversion of his personality and gives a bit of breathing room to Rose and Dave.

But it’s a little saddening to see John reach out to Jade, to touch her or speak with her, and have a surprised look every time she responds. Like he still expects her to not hear him properly, or know him well enough to give him a smile. The simple awe he sometimes has, just getting to be close to Jade again, sends unfair strikes of empathy through Rose and Dave. Not only is he cute, but he’s tragic in a heart wrenching way. They don’t have to consult Rose’s intuition to know they’re likely fucked.

Sometimes, John will sit up on the roof at odd hours whenever he feels too claustrophobic, and sometimes Dave will haul his ass up the garden trellis to join him. It’s a trick, but Dave manages it.

“Yo,” Dave usually says in greeting, clambering his way up the slanted rooftop. “Any good storms comin’ around soon?”

John glances at him, a momentary look of shock that Dave is actually talking to him, before the moment is gone and he shrugs blandly. “There’s a couple on the other side of the mountain, but I don’t know if they’ll swing by through here. Mountain range climates can be a little finicky about what weather gets where.”

“Great, because I think Jade was trying to drag us all out for a picnic romp, and she’d make us do it anyways even if it rained.”

John snorts. “She totally would, and she totally has with me already! Bluh, it was like, a complete typhoon too, but Jade thought we could make it through fine as long as we brought the tent…”

Dave raises one eyebrow. “And how’d that go.”

“We got _totally soaked,_ is what happened. That’s what I got for listening to my twelve year old not-cousin, ha ha.””

“Not-cousin?”

“…oh yeah, I forgot to tell you guys that. Uh. Some memory stuff came back to me earlier. Just enough that I know me and Jade were raised thinking we weren’t related at all, just cousins by marriage, until our parents died and… well, grandpa picked us up, and explained everything.”

Dave watches John curl over his knees, flicking in his solidness. “Is that why you’re on the roof?”

John shrugs. “We already remembered that our parents were dead, it’s just the not-cousin stuff tripping me up. Or the memory junk in general, I guess. I remembered most of it, but there’s just… pieces still missing. We can’t remember their faces or names, and we don’t know our own last names. Or even our grandpa’s.” He sighs harshly, rubbing one of his eyes. “That witch took pretty much _everything_ from us. Or everything important, at least. Fucking sucks.”

That’s a lot of emotional baggage in one go, so Dave supposes it was a particularly vivid memory flashback that John’s had tonight. Poor dude, that’s a lot of shit to work through in one go.

It’s also a grim reminder to Dave about Aradia’s warnings to them. Names have power, and giving that power to someone is a dangerous thing. Jade and John’s cursed states are proof of what stealing a name and identity could do to someone.

Dave lies back on the rough tiles of his home, and puts his arms under his head. Putting those thoughts away for thinking on later. “Sure does, bro, but chill out. We’ll get that shit back eventually. You two are getting more memories by the day; eventually you’ll hit the important stuff. Can’t hide forever.”

 “…heh, I hope so.”

Dave glances at John from the corner of his eye. The wind spirit still seems upset and out of sorts.

While Dave’s a little relieved most of John’s overreaching enthusiasm was a side effect of being a wind spirit, it’s a little uncomfortable to see him swing so low now that he’s mostly human again. It’s an abrupt shift between the two John’s Dave has tentatively started to know, and one he’s not entirely comfortable with.

Maybe he should call Jade for a tacklehug, or Rose to come say some deep shit about being able to overcome obstacles with time and effort. Or he could…

“You wanna go flying?” Dave suggests.

John blinks, and turns to look at him. “What?”

“I have my own personal superman living rent free in my house, and he hasn’t taken me on a scenic sky date even once yet. You’re really letting Louis Lane down here, buddy. Poor form.”

John snorts, giving Dave a look of disbelief. “You want me to carry you through the sky, bridal style? Really?”

Dave shrugs. “Sure, why not?” How bad could it really be?

Really bad. _This was a terrible idea_ , is what Dave decides exactly a minute and a half later. But it’s too late, because John is laughing and whooping as he swoops _too fucking fast_ over the treetops, Dave in his arms and with no way down to the ground without going _splat._

Dave gives zero shits how ridiculous he might be being, arms locked around John’s neck and terrified to let go. And as John slows to a stop, hovering in the air, Dave risks a glance down at the world below.

Oh fuck are they ever high up. Why does Jade let John do this to her so often. It’s fucking insane.

“You okay?” John asks, his messy black hair blowing around his head as he looks at Dave.

“Fucking peachy,” Dave replies. “Do not drop me, I swear to god.”

“Ha ha, Jade’s right, you’re such a dork.”

“I am no such thing and you’re all just trying to slander my good name.”

John snorts, and lifts them higher into the sky. It’s freezing cold this far up, and Dave is grateful he opted for a hoodie today. John’s a little cold feeling too, but not so much it’s uncomfortable to hold onto him.

Oh hey, it’s not so bad as long as he doesn’t look at the ground. Kind of nice up here, with nothing for his magical senses to pick up on except for John. Totally migraine free.

Dave’s hair is blowing in front of his glasses, and so is John’s in front of his. They fly/float peacefully among the clouds; John’s windy thing probably protecting Dave from the worst of the air currents. He relaxes a little, but not too much because ha ha the ground is way far below them and Dave’s not quite _that_ ballsy.

But maybe John is, because he leans in close to try pecking a kiss on Dave’s cheek.

Their glasses clack on one another’s, and there’s an embarrassed silence right after.

John goes red, and groans. Dave, equally red, can’t help the laughter that bubbles up in him.

“Oh my god, lamest make out attempt ever.”

“Ugh, shut up. I was trying to be romantic!”

“Points for lack of originality and near perfect execution of the most cliché scene ever. I loved it.”

“Shut uuuuup.”

“Can’t, that was too good; I have to enjoy the irony of it not working out while I can.”

“ _Uuuuuugh.”_

Dave keeps laughing, John threatens to drop him, and eventually Dave just removes both their glasses so they can try again. It works that time around.

Rose’s experience with flying is better planned than Dave’s, and after she shows John one of her favorite Ghibli studio movies, they waltz above the garden at a sedate and graceful pace. Rose’s knee length dress billows and blows as he twirls them around, and she’s pleased to see how brightly John is smiling.

Dave pipes up from below, “We can see your panties, Lalonde.”

“You’ve seen much more than my panties, Strider,” Rose replies, letting John dip her without even a pause. She smiles down at her girlfriend and brother. “I doubt my panties will scandalize you too gravely.”

Jade laughs, and grabs Dave to pull him into a dance as well. Albeit one with a wilder gait to it, and no real planning to the steps. Dave flails admirably trying to keep up, and Jade swings him about without effort.

“Dave’s pretty bad at dancing,” John remarks.

“His talents are better suited to other things, I’m afraid,” Rose says with false regret. “For example, he’s excellent at balancing up to eight spoons on his face.”

John snickers. “Okay, but I can do up to ten. Think he could beat that?”

“Oh I doubt it. Poor Dave, he’s been demoted once again in the house hierarchy, this time because of failure to impress with silverware accessorizing.”

“I’ll be sure to treat him with respect, despite his lower position in- okay wait that’s too innuendo-y, ha ha.”

Rose smiles, and sweeps her leg out and around John’s. John stops in mid sway, giving her a deer in the headlights look.

“Perhaps it’s not enough of an innuendo?” Rose says. When John laughs awkwardly, she presses further. “John, I’ll opt to be frank with you here. I know trading butterfly kisses are well and good, but I’d like to know if you really are interested in joining our polyamorous relationship sexually speaking.”

“Uh… I don’t know, actually,” John says with a shrug. He seems a little lost as he does. “You guys are pretty cute looking, and I know Jade loves you… but, augh, there’s always just been me and her. This is a big adjustment.”

“Dave and I feel similarly, rest assured. You’re not alone.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then we remain civil extended poly partners and exchange only the tenderest of cheek kisses.”

John laughs. “That sounds alright enough on its own. And if I say yes?”

Rose smirks, and shifts their bodies a little closer together; her leg firmly around John’s and their hips nearly connecting. “Then I know of other sorts of tender care that we might exchange.”

John’s ears are red, and the flush is creeping over his cheeks. His smile is an obvious attempt to be suave, and comes off as endearingly awkward.

“Then Miss Lalonde, please let me ravage you in only the most intimate ways.”

“Oh, Mister John!”

“Miss Rose!”

“What are you two even doing up there?” Jade asks from below, holding Dave in a bridal carry he seems completely resigned to.

John and Rose exchange shifty looks, and John answers, “Ravishing one another in midair, what does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re both being dorky without me and Dave!”

“We feel left out and everything,” Dave adds.

“Well we can’t have that,” Rose says solemnly. “After all, the point of a poly _is_ to be equal in ravishment of all members.”

“Quite!” John says brightly.

Following Jade and Dave’s chanting beckons, John lowers Rose and himself back to the ground with all the delicacy of a butterfly landing. Then he sweeps the wind up and flips Rose’s skirt.

Dave and Jade make choked sounds of barely stifled laughter, and Rose stands there perfectly expressionless. John snickers into his palms.

“John?”

“Yes, Rose?”

Rose snaps her fingers, and a series of harmless light flashes blind John. He yelps, flying up to safety and covering his eyes.

“Augh!”

“It’s very rude to flip a lady’s skirt, John.”

“I’m sorry!”

“You ought to be.”

“ _Dorks,”_ Jade snickers with glee.

“Totally,” Dave agrees, still held in her arms.

They don’t actually get around to trying anything in the category of ravishing that night. Mostly, they end up in a pile of giggling limbs, and poke and prod at one another until they get too tired to.

At the beginning, John is asked if he wants to initiate anything, but he declines. He’s still getting used to having tangible sensory feedback, and having a four-way sexcapade sounds a little much for him. Jade coos sympathetically, and wraps herself around him for a cuddle instead; Rose and Dave relegated to sandwiching the cursed twins in the middle of the bed.

Jade sprawls in her sleep, Dave clings to whoever is closest, Rose’s sharp elbows dig into everyone’s sides, and John snores loudly.

It’s a pretty comfortable sleep for everyone involved.

 

 

 

A short while after they find a tempo to their group dynamic, Dave opens the backdoor to wander out for an early morning breath of fresh air, and stops short because there’s a woman standing in the middle of their backyard.

“Hello, Dave,” Aradia says with a wide smile.

Dave stares at her, frozen for a long moment, and then bolts back into the house.

 _“ROSE!”_ He smacks into the wall as his slipper lose traction. “Ow, fuck- _ROSE WHERE ARE YOU?!”_

Rose, stepping out of the bathroom with a toothbrush in her mouth, gives him an annoyed look.

Dave gestates at the way he came, trying to find the quickest way to convey the fresh fuckery that’s come calling.

He finally settles on just saying _“-Aradia’s here!”_ and it makes Rose choke on her toothpaste.

By the time they burst back outside, Rose’s needles in her hands and Dave holding a jar of skulls and a knife, Jade is talking enthusiastically with the most terrifying woman either of them ever met.

Jade notices them and their weapons, and gives them a bright smile. “Guys, this is Aradia! I knew her when I was still a werewolf. She’s actually the one who pointed me in the directions of these mountains.”

A swift breeze blows out of the house, and John appears out of (ha ha) thin air. He looks ecstatic, and totally okay with the fact that a very powerful witch has appeared in their garden.

“Oh wow, hey Aradia! I haven’t seen you around in a while, how’ve you been?”

Aradia smiles at the hovering wind spirit, his bluster fluffing up her hair. “I’ve been just great, thanks for asking. I’m glad you found your sister again, it’s good to see you two doing so well.”

Dave has no idea what’s happening. Neither does Rose.

Dave raises the hand he’s holding the knife in. “Hey, excuse me dork squad and uninvited guest, the fuck is going on exactly?”

They all turn their attention to Dave and Rose, and the twin witches resist the urge to run over and drag their partners away from Aradia.

Aradia gives them a kind smile, and tips the broad brimmed hat on her head. “Hello to you too, lovely to see that you got yourselves so nicely sorted out! I suppose you’ll be wanting some explanations now?”

“If you would be so kind,” Rose says, tightly polite.

Aradia laughs and it’s a tinkling sound that prickles the hairs on the back their neck.

The most unnerving thing is that she hasn’t aged a day. Aradia, sitting at their dining room table a few minutes later, looks exactly the same as she had when Dave and Rose met her all those years ago. Just with the addition of a new hat and a different black dress.

Dave doesn’t even try to examine her presence; Aradia is enough of an anomaly her very existence leaks into his senses. She feels displaced from time like nothing else he’s ever encountered.

Rose _does_ try examining Aradia with her magic, and gets an overwhelming collection of what-ifs and maybes for her trouble. It’s too much to decipher and she has to sip darkly at her coffee to calm herself.

Jade and John explain that they’ve had interactions with Aradia over the years. That every so often a witch that could hear them and speak to them would appear, and point them in a direction, or simply be a momentary conversation partner. Aradia is the one who pointed Jade towards the mountain range Rose met her in, and Aradia is also the one who reminded a drifting storm that John had been at the time that he should remember to check on his sister.

Rose and Dave watch the incredibly suspicious woman who’s interfered with all their lives at one point or another, and think that this is likely a part of the driving force that’s brought them all together.

Aradia laughs and dodges pointed questions. She’s smiling, but it’s in a manner that’s not readable beyond being unsettling to look at. After the fifth try, she raises a hand.

“Enough of that, we don’t have much time at all,” She says. Then she laughs. “Or, well, _I_ have all the time in the world; it’s you four that don’t. I believe that you’re aware that breaking John and Jade’s curses will bring their curser’s wrath, correct?”

“…yes, we are well aware,” Rose replies slowly, putting a hand on Jade’s knee beside her as the wolf-woman averts her eyes. “We’ve been preparing defenses to prevent her from getting to them.”

“Ah, good, but I’m afraid it won’t be enough,” Aradia says with a pitying smile. “Their witch still has their names, and until she doesn’t they’ll always be at risk. She’s a very old and powerful witch, one that’s been stealing time and lives from people longer than any of us can fathom being alive. She won’t ever stop coming, won’t ever stop hunting, now that you’ve gone and taken something she deemed is hers.”

Rose and Dave bristle defensively as their partners shrink back in fear. They don’t have to communicate it, because they’ve already discussed that they’ll fight until the last second to protect their partners. Even if it costs them their lives.

Then Aradia grins brightly, and claps her hands.

“But that doesn’t matter, because you’ve got a good chance of being able to stop her completely. And obviously, the best solution in this situation is to just kill her yourselves!” She leans forwards on the table, and smiles with too many teeth. “And that’s what I’ve come here to help you with. After all, we have some shared interest in seeing the old witch dead.”

Jade and John are tense beside them, as Rose and Dave exchange subtle side glances.

There’s nothing to really discuss. They need every advantage they can get, even if it comes from a dubious source.

Rose clasps her hands like Aradia, and leans forwards as well.

“Well, Miss Aradia, please do share.”

 

 


End file.
